Back to the Falls
by Sir FunStuff
Summary: Set one year after the events of the previous summer, Dipper and Mabel Pines continue their adventures back in Gravity Falls. As the two make their way back to the old town, they see it was left exactly how they remember it: Confusing and odd. But to the unaware twins, a new horror watches them, and with it, the rest of the town. (Schedule messed up for a bit. Sorry.)
1. Prologue: Homecoming

(Hello ladies and Gentlemen! This is my first go at this so please read/review. I could really use some constructive criticism if you have any to spare. This is the prologue to my story, and my goal is to make it into a sort of season three for myself. And while the quality of my writing is hopefully up to par with writing standards, feedback is appreciated to no end. I would be thrilled to hear what you guys would like to see next in oncoming chapters. But enough about what I want, Let's get on with it.)

Gravity Falls, Oregon. A town that, from a distance, looked like the last place to have a reason to visit. Most towns had that certain aspect to it that always brought people towards them. Whether it be a national landmark, a bit of that old world charm, or even the best apple pie in the country, every town had its specialty. Gravity Falls, however, had none of that. It was a small logging town deep within the forests of Oregon that made every other town look better by comparison. It was a town that made boredom, splinters and lumber related accidents a passtime. And what the town lacked in population, they made up for in paranoia. The type of Paranoia that made certain parts of the south go "Don't you think you're over doing it?". The entire existence of the town was an anomaly in itself. A town who's lumber production was outshined by major companies, the citizens who felt as if fear was another daily part of life, and tourist traps so bad, that the rest of America can use it as a petty comparison. So if you passed by the town of Gravity Falls, there is no doubt that you'd go out of your way to avoid being sucked into the town's sad existence.

That being said, that is just seeing it from a distance.

In the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon, it was a day like any other, albeit a few small differences, an ordinary day. But today had that extra tint of something special that made it stand out ever so slightly. There was tension that found itself throughout the entire town, electricity flew threw the air and there was an eerie silence that seemed off for a town in the forest. Maybe there was an unspoken holiday, maybe there was massive crime that drove the town silent, maybe the world itself was coming to an end.

Or maybe it was just...

RING RING RING

"SCHOOL'S OUT, LOSERS!" a older student cried while he and the rest of the school sprinted out of the building.

Maybe it was just the last day of school.

It was May 31th, 2013. the final day of school for not just Gravity Falls, but the rest of the U.S. as well. It wasn't just a big day for the students leaving school for the next few months, it was just as important for the people of the working world to get ready to deal with these students for the next couple of months.

You had people like Fiddleford McGucket, who had to get ready for the next wave of vandalism from the recently released teens. You had people like Toby Determined who had to get ready to write for the Gravity Falls Gossiper, and keep everyone happy with his stories. You even had people like Manly Dan, who being a lumberjack, was an important cog in the revenue machine that was logging in Gravity Falls.

And more importantly, you had people like Stanley and Stanford Pines.

After the events of the previous summer, the Pines Twins took it upon themselves to give up their lives at the tourist trap known as the Mystery Shack, to sail around the world, and uncover the greatest mysteries unknown to man. And while the call to adventure was supposed to be a permanent one, the two agreed that once a year, for the entirety of summer break, they would come back to Gravity Falls to spend some time with the people they left behind for adventure.

And today was the day they made their return.

"Stanley, wake up. we're here." Ford said, nudging his sleeping brother.

"Meh." Stan grumbled, still asleep.

"Come on, Stan. I said we're here." Ford said

"And I said Meh." Stan restated, swatting at his brother.

"We've been in this bus for the past 22 hours, how are you still sleeping?"

"Easy, I remember the non-stop yapping of science, and away I go."

"Well, we have to get off. The bus leaves in 10 minutes, so get up!" Ford proclaimed.

"Uuuuuugh. Fine." Stan groaned, getting up from his seat, he streched. "Oh-ugh-ow! God. Everything hurts." Stan complained, holding his back.

"Oh come now! You fought off an entire tribe of cannibalistic pygmys on our first month of expeditions with nothing but brass knuckles, but a bus seat makes you say 'Ow'?" Ford asked, mocking his brother.

Before Stan could reply with a witty comeback, the bus driver turned to the twins with an angry look in his eye. "This your stop?"

Ford looked to the driver. "Uh...yeah. This is us."

"Then get the hell off my bus. Now." the bus driver said sternly.

The twins then proceeded to make their way off the bus. Stan wanted to make a snarky reply to the bus driver, but for once, Stan thought that maybe the driver was just having a bad day, or maybe his favorite show of all time ended and learned there would be no season 3.

Stan took in a deep breath just after exiting the bus. "Well Ford. This is it. We're back home." Stan looked at the Mystery shack with a smile on his face.

"As much as I hate to admit it, I'm glad we're back too." Ford said, smiling towards the building.

They were back home. Back at the Mystery Shack. It was a run down, cheap as dirt, expensive as gold, tourist trap with the most hilarious excuses for paranormal discoveries that anyone has ever seen. The 'S' in 'Shack' was still embedded into the earth, the old couch was still on the front porch, and the 100% authentic plastic totem pole was still holding up the numerous 'NO REFUNDS' signs. And they couldn't be happier to see it.

"Well, even after our time around the world, i'm glad it's kept that little piece of me." Stan said casually, eyeing the numeous 'NO REFUNDS' signs.

"We should probably get inside, unpack, and wait for the-" Ford was cut off by a loud rumbling coming from the earth.

Birds began to fly up from the trees, sensing the loud noise emanating from who-knows-where. Tourist on their way towards the shack began screaming and sprinting back to their cars. It may have sounded like a Gargantuan creature burrowing through the earth, but through the dust being kicked up and coming towards them, Stan heard one thing that put his mind at ease...

"MISTER PINES!" a loud voice shouted from within the dust. The figure in the dust lunged at Stan, and held him with a vice grip.

"Oof...S-OOS!...good to se you t-OO!" Stan said, while gasping for breath.

Soos was exactly the same as when Stan gave him the Shack. He was still a larger man, wearing the same suit he wore on his first day of new management. And to top it all off, he was still wearing the 'Eye patch and fez' gettup he learned from Stanley Pines himself.

"Oh my God! Mister Pines, I've missed you so much! And you too Ford, like, no offense, but I kinda knew Mister Pines longer, but still, totally happy to see you, dude." Soos mentioned, apologetically.

"Soos, could ya let me dow-GACK!" Stan gasped.

"I'm tellin' ya, I've been doing great! I kept the shop running, I'm actually getting people to come to the shack, and I've even got a wall of interesting customers, where I take pictures of cool people I met at the Shack, like this one time, this lady was totally lost, and then she asked to use the phone, and i was like- " Soos rambled, while still crushing Stan

"SOOS!" Stan shouted, purple in the face, and gasping for breath.

Soos paused, and looked at Stan, realizing his condition.

"I really want to hear how the Shack's been doing, but you're breaking my spine, and crushing my lungs! " Stan yelled.

"Oh. Heh. Sorry, dude." Soos apologized, letting Stan go.

"Oi. Don't worry about it. Let's just-Ow- get back inside." Stan said, holding his back for the second time.

As the three made it back inside, Stan was beffudled by the changes he could see at the Shack. The floor was completely redone, the old, creaking and splintering floor was replaced with a much finer cherry hardwood. The walls shimmered from the sunlight peering in through the window, even the register seemed like it got a nice blue paint job. But looking past the changes, it was the same mystery shack that he knew. The merchandise was still plentiful, the jar of eyeballs was still on the counter, and best of all, it still felt like home.

"I got to hand it to ya, Soos, you really kept this place in shape." Stan claimed.

"Well, I thought that if I've been working here for this long, I could add my own Soos-handyman-skills to it, you know?" Soos said, smiling.

The twins made their way towards the back of the building. "Don't worry about us. We're gonna unpack. We'll be in the back until you close up." Ford said, walking away.

"I could actually close up now. Everyone outside was screaming about an earthquake, or something..." Soos trailed off.

As they split off, Soos made his way towards the front door, flipping the 'Open' sign, to 'Closed'. Soos let out a sigh with a smile, and slowly made his way back towards the twins. he sat at the table in the kitchen with Ford, while Stan was still up.

Stan made himself at home, and went straight for the fridge, grabbing himself a can of soda from the top shelf. As he turned back towards the table, he saw Soos and Ford chatting it up, bringing up the adventures they had during their brief time apart. Stan opened up the can and joined them at the table, continuing the stories Ford started.

* * *

"Anyway, that's how we found out that the Vatican was actually run by a snake cult, and that the Pope was actually a puppet made of wood." Ford finished, with a proud look on his face.

"Were there really people that were half snake, half human?" Soos asked, his eyes filled with wonder.

"Yeah, hardly! There was only one, and he knocked out just as easy as everyone else!" Stan grumbled, muttering the words 'What a sham' to himself.

"Well, that beats that story I told you about getting stuck in the vending machine." Soos said, almost sadly.

Stan craned his head towards the clock. "Yeesh! It's already 10:00. We should probably hit the hay soon." Stan said.

"Well, don't worry Mister Pines, tommorow's a sunday. After I finished fixin' the place up, I decided to close up on sundays. Just have a chill day, you know?" Soos claimed.

"But Soos, you can't close up to everyone," Stan winked to Ford. "Tommorow, are you sure you couldn't let two people in?"

"I mean, it kind of, you know, ruins the whole 'Chill day' concept" Soos said, unable to take a hint.

"Soos," Stan, now winking to Soos."Heh?"

"I suppose I could let in, like, a few dudes..." Soos continued, still clueless as ever.

"Please tell me you're actually getting this, Soos." Stan grumbled.

"Of course, I'm getting it! I AM in charge of the Mystery Shack, remember?" Soos said proudly.

"You have no idea what I'm talking about..." Stan said, plainly.

"Not a clue." Soos frowned slightly.

Stan reached into his jacket, and pulled out a picture of two silver bus tickets. Each one saying:

DEPARTING: PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA

ARRIVING: GRAVITY FALLS, OREGON

DATE OF DEPARTURE: MAY 31st, 2013

Soos held up the picture, and gave a hard look. He thought to himself 'Who do I, Soos, know in Piedmont. I think my cousin Marie lived in Piedmont. Wait, no. She moved to New York. Other than that, I can only think of...' Soos brain stopped. The cogs in his mind began to turn at maximum speed. And only one word popped into his head 'Twins'.

Soos' eyes shot wide open as he looked to Stan. Stan's only reciprocation towards Soos was to give him a crooked smile and a raised eyebrow. Soos opened his mouth and simply asked "The Twins?", his words, filled with excitement

"Yep. They got themselves on a bus, and they're shipping themselves back up to Gravity Falls. By tomorrow, we'll have the two little gremlins back with us, doing their mystery solving or whatever." Stan chuckled.

Soos nearly shot out of his seat as he stood at the table. "Aww man, this is going to be awesome! They'll have their old rooms again, and we can hang out again, and I can show them all the cool things I added to the Shack! Oh man, I gotta call Wendy, like, now, dude!" Soos shouted, while running into the other room.

Stan tried to slow him down, but in the end, he probably would have just broken a rib or something, trying to stop him. As Stan and Ford chuckled, they made their way to the living room, and set up a few sleeping bags as a temporary setup until they could make proper sleeping arangements.

* * *

As the sun set in the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon, so did the townsfolk. A crimson color hued the sun, as it descended itself slowly towards the earth. The last thought of Stanley Pines before sleep took him away was a pleasant one. He closed his eyes and saw himself running the Mystery Shack, just like old times. he could see Soos breaking a window in the shop, and then repairing said window. He could see Wendy behind the counter, doing nothing as usual and reading her teenager magazines, but even if she barely did enough to qualify as 'motion', Stan was always happy to see her around. But the best part of all, he could see the twins coming into the Shack after another wacky adventure. They would come back to him after finding a ancient conspiracy, but he would just laugh, and tell them it was all in their heads. It's a shame he can't do that anymore. But It wouldn't deter him from doing everything he could to be a part of yet another summer for the Mystery Twins.

Just before Stan finally drifted off to sleep, he pulled out a picture of his favorite niece and nephew. Even though he, Soos and Wendy were in the picture, he focused on the two in the middle.

"Dipper, Mabel..." Stan paused. "I'll see you two tomorrow. I...uh...love you two. Or something." Stan whispered to himself, smiling before he finally slept.

(So what did you think? Was it good? Was it Bad? Did it make you want to blow your brains out? Whatever you did think, please tell me. I'll still do this for my own enjoyment, but if I know that somebody liked it, that's just enough for me to keep going. The next chapter I write should be much longer. Seeing as how this is but a prologue, it's just a hint of what this story is going to be. So remember, Tell me if it was great, tell me if it sucked, and all shall be a-okay.

Stay classy.)


	2. Chapter 1: Back Again

Chapter 1: Back Again

(So, here we meet once again. How you guys doing? Doing well? I myself have been alright, I've been writing quite vigorously, so my hands are ever so slightly cramped up, but enough about me. Welcome to the-technically-first-chapter. If you are reading this, this means you enjoyed the prologue, or you became quite lost and stumbled into my humble abode. Now enough of my ramblings. Let's proceed, Shall we?)

It was a very quiet morning just outside of Gravity Falls, Oregon. The sun in the sky warmed the very air that it touched. A very light humidity caused the wind blowing by to be given a warm welcome to anyone who enjoyed its embrace. The sound of crickets and cicadas produced an eerily melodic tune, paired with the wind hitting the trees, and the rivers running alongside the thick forest, it almost sounded like an orchestra was being produced by nature itself. But slowly, over the horizon, a sound disturbed the natural music. A sound unknown to nature. Just below the mountains that surrounded Gravity Falls, a faint sound could be heard from the long highway, breaking off into a narrow road leading into the small town. It was a sound everyone has heard in their life, a sound everyone could identify as soon as they heard it: It was an engine.

A long silver bus travelled along the empty road, disrupting the peace nature had brought this morning. The bus was doing exactly what was expected of such a vehicle; it was to bring people to their destination, and the next stop, was Gravity Falls. The other occupants of the bus had departed long ago, arriving at their respective stops. Where there was originally chatter between the travelers, there was now silence. There were only two passengers left who endured the seemingly never ending bus ride, and they were asleep.

One of the passengers was a boy, appearing to be 13 years old. He seemed like every other kid his age, red shirt, black vest, light brown shorts, standard summer attire. But the thing the thing that set him apart was his white and blue pine tree baseball cap, which he had kept with him from his previous summer. Next to him, her head on his shoulder, also sleeping, was his twin sister. She had long brown hair with a bright pink headband. And much like her brother with his hat, her trademark was her bright pink wool sweater, adorned with a shooting star in the middle. While next to her, her suitcases seemed to carry a seemingly impossible number of sweaters. But even if she had enough sweaters to clothe all of Oregon, this one was her favorite.

While the two in the back of the bus would have been content just sleeping until they got to their destination, or at least, a few more minutes, the world had something else planned for them…

CLICK!

"Good morning Gravity Falls! It's currently 10:20. This is Jeffrey Bates, coming at you live on this particularly lovely Sunday morning. For our forecast today, we're looking at partially cloudy skies, with a whole lot of sun for the rest of the day. So expect plenty of birds singing, bees buzzin' and blue skies stayin' blue." Jeff said, his soft voice coming from the radio.

"To those just tuning in right now, I feel that the only way to start off a Sunday like this," He paused. "Especially on the first day of summer… is with the classics." He finished.

The radio made another click, and suddenly, the soft strums of a guitar could be heard from the other end. And on top of the guitar, lyrics could be heard, being sung by a very soothing voice.

Hey, where did we go?

Days when the hail came?

Down in the hollow,

Playin' a new game.

Gigglin' and a sprintin', hey hey,

Prancin' and a hoppin'.

In the misty mornin' fog with

Our, our hearts-a-poundin',

And you, my Blue-eyed girl.

You my Blue-eyed girl.

One of the two figures in the back of the bus slowly twisted and turned its entire body. It sat upright, eyes still closed, putting its arms into the air, reaching for the sky and stretching out the effects of a long rest. Its eyes slowly opened halfway, and turned to the other figure which it previously rested its head.

"Dipper…" Mabel asked, her voice still raspy from her slumber. Nudging her sleeping twin.

Dipper groaned, and turned on to his side, now facing away from his sister.

"Dipper wake up, I think we're almost there." Mabel told her brother, still trying to nudge him awake.

"Come on, five more minutes, mom…" Dipper trailed, still half asleep.

Mabel shrugged. And slowly slouched back into her seat. She was on the brink of closing her eyes once more. But before her eyelids shut, her gaze caught the glimpse of a familiar sight. In the distance, deep into the thick forests surrounding them, a large wooden construct, easily thirty feet into the air, held up a large cylinder, and a cone atop of it. Etched onto the side was a very poorly spray painted 'Explosion', looking much more like a muffin. But predominantly, there were two words, in large bold writing which read 'Gravity Falls'.

Mabel's eyes went wide with wonder, and the brace-filled grin on her face couldn't get any bigger. Her hands grabbed her brother by the shoulders, turning him towards her and shaking him vigorously.

"DIPPERDIPPERDIPPERDIPPERWAKEUPWAKEUPWAKEUPWAKEUP!" Mabel shouted, grinning like a madwoman.

"Ow-jus-cal-stop-ma-MABEL!" Dipper snapped to his sister, trying to get a word out while being shaken.

"Dip, we're almost there!" Mabel said, bouncing up and down in her seat.

"Ok, just -ow- give me a bit to wake up first." Dipper complained, picking himself of the cold and dirty bus floor.

"Boo." Mabel said, crossing her arms, and her brother now sitting back in his seat. "Is someone a little bit grumpy today?" Mabel taunted to her now frowning brother.

"I'm not grumpy, I just don't want to be woken up with the force of an earthquake." Dipper said, peering out the window.

"Oh, come on, Bro-bro. You're being a grumpy-face." Mabel smiled towards her brother. "Boop." She blurted, poking Dipper's nose.

"Mabel, come on, quit it." Dipper demanded, trying his best hold back a smile.

"Boop. Boop. Boop." Mabel continuously poked her twin.

Dipper, now failing to suppress laughter. "Seriously, stop it…"

"Come on, Dipper! How can you be all moody and tired, when we get to see everyone back in town?" Mabel asked, truly befuddled on how her brother could be tired.

"Yeah, I guess. We did get that postcard all the way from Egypt." Dipper said, pulling out an unsigned postcard from Egypt, simply saying 'See you soon'.

"I know, and I don't know anyone from Egypt!" Mabel said, innocently.

"Well, let's just hope I'm right about who sent it." Dipper mentioned, a small smile forming in the corner of his mouth.

"Do I see itty-bitty smile?" Mabel asked, teasingly. "See, Dipper? Just give in to the alpha twin, and stop with the grump." Mabel said, proudly.

"Yeah, sure…Alpha twin…"Dipper said under his breath, trailing off.

With the twins finally awake, the realization of what was to come was a welcome thought in the mind of Dipper. As the bus continued its route along the noiseless road, it passed a landmark that was always a welcome sight. Well at least to those that looked for it. Just as they passed the invisible line that were the town's boundaries, there it was. A large, green bordered wooden sign, with a faded forested background, in large orange letters, the sign read:

Welcome to Gravity Falls.

* * *

As the bus made its stop just off the road leading into the actual town, the twins began to grab their bags, boxes and various other words starting with 'B'. The two proceeded down the aisle of seats, but while Dipper kept a modest smile, doing his best to keep in the excitement in his mind, Mabel had a grin large enough to make a crescent moon seem inferior by comparison.

As Dipper proceeded to disembark from the bus, Mabel stayed behind for a few moments to give appropriate thanks to the bus driver.

"Thanks for the ride, mister bus driver!" Mabel squealed, her eyes filled with excitement.

"Yeah, sure…Whatever…." The bus driver grumbled, staring angrily out the windshield.

"Wop." Mabel sounded, smacking a glittery sticker onto the bus driver's face, with 'Bus-t a move' written on it, displaying a dancing bus in a bus drivers uniform.

Mabel exited the bus, leaving the bus driver, now putting one hand over his eyes, mumbling 'Not worth it' under his breath.

With the twins finally out of the bus, it very quickly pulled away, seeming as if it couldn't be happier to leave this final stop. Instead of rushing towards the door, expecting to see the faces they remember from a year ago, they stood where they got off, remembering the thoughts they had when first saw the building in front of them:

'This is where I'm spending my summer? How come we couldn't stay home? Is Grunkle a real word?'

But that was when they first laid eyes on it, now, seeing all of the wonderful and miraculous discoveries that they experienced the previous summer, paired with the friends that they've come to know, the only thought that they had in their minds…

'Why did we have to leave?'

They both walked slowly towards the building, as much as they both wanted to run forwards, shouting various names of the people they remember, they kept a steady pace, wanting to take in the nostalgia from their last time here. The closer they got to the building, the more their anticipation grew. A small break in their pace was brought to the attention of Dipper, hearing a loud crumpling noise beneath his feet. He lifted up his shoe to see a bumper sticker, obviously fallen off the back of a car due to the cheap adhesive, a lighthearted smile came across his face when he read the words his head.

'What is the Mystery Shack?' In black, oddly sized letters.

As they got to the porch, they saw all the old pieces of the Shack that they remembered. The old couch was still out, and still as moldy and crawling with bugs as ever. Just around the corner, they could see an odd looking rock on a pedestal. It may have been a rock, but you could have sworn it looked like a face. Or was it actually a face? Nah, probably still a rock. And quite unsurprisingly, probably one of the signs Soos missed after taking over the shack, a bright yellow and orange sign saying 'We put the fun, back in NO REFUNDS'.

The Twins very quietly made their way towards the window, peering into the tourist trap. As their eyes adjusted to the somewhat dimmer lighting within the Shack, They saw it a little differently as they did the last time they were there. Their minds were washed away with the various pleasant, confusing, and occasionally horrifying adventure that were spoken about within the building.

"Man, if those walls could talk…" Dipper trailed off, smiling.

"That would be so cool! We could talk back to them, and be friends, and we could set them up with other talking walls, and they could have WALL BABIES!" Mabel imagined.

"Mabel, expression." Dipper sighed.

"Yeah, but still…" Mabel smiled, still picturing the possibility of befriending sentient walls.

Before another thought could pop into the mind of Dipper or Mabel, a curtain leading into the tour that the Shack was deservedly infamous for, began to ruffle. Out from the curtain, emerged two figures, all familiar in the memories of the Mystery Twins. The two seemed to be having a conversation, and maybe even telling a joke. The first figure, a large man, wearing a suit jacket, a white buttoned up shirt, brown cargo shorts, and a red fez. The Twins opened their mouths in unison, and whispered one word at the same time.

"Soos!" The Twins whispered, their eyes filled with wonder.

The second figure was an older, half slender, half bulky man with a gruff look to him. He wore a lightly tattered, light brown lab coat, with a red turtleneck sweater underneath and a pair of gently cracked glasses upon his face. His features were pretty standard for an old man. He had greying hair, which seemed much lighter on his sideburns and the back of his neck. But the one feature that set him apart from other men his age, was the extra finger he had on each of his hands.

"Hang on," Dipper paused, "Ford? Wait, if he's here, than that must mean…" Dipper trailed off, on the edge of his metaphorical seat.

And once more from the curtains in the Shack, a third figure emerged. As this third figure emerged from the back of the tour hall, Dipper and Mabel's eyes shot open as wide as they could, and the biggest smile they could have ever smiled formed onto their faces. The Third figure was older man much like the second man in the Shack. In fact, he was almost identical to the second man that stood in the Shack. There was no doubt they were brothers. Twins even. While the third man was missing the sixth finger that his brother had, he had enough of a cocky attitude and con-man intelligence to make for the lack of an interesting appendage. He wore a black suit, much like the first man wore, but instead of cargo shorts, there were actual dress pants.

Within' the Shack, the three men gathered around the entrance to the tour section of the building. Unaware of the surprise they were about to receive.

"I can't believe the genius in there!" Stan proclaimed. "I mean seriously, the Jaguaren't?"

"The only jaguar, that isn't a jaguar!" Soos explained, reminiscing of the amazing attraction, and terrible pun he created with Stan's spirit in mind.

"I'm tellin' ya Soos, out of all terrible things that I am, I'm glad I can be a terrible influence too." Stan said, giving Soos a friendly smack on the shoulder.

"Well, it's good that we could that could get a tour of the shack before the Twins get here." Ford said, eyeing the clock.

"Hey, Mister Pines, when _did_ you say the Twins should be getting here?" Soos asked, anxiously.

"Judging by that by that 'absolutely pleasant' shmuck that gave us a ride," Stan grumbled. "We'll honestly be lucky if they get here around midni-" Stan was cut off by the sound of the door being slammed opened, and the bell above it ringing. Two figures, fast as lightning, sprinted their way into the gift shop. Both of them darting towards Stan as fast as they could, dropping their bags at the door, they shouted one thing as loud as possible:

"GRUNKLE STAN!" Dipper and Mabel shouted while jumping on top of their Great Uncle.

"KI-OOF!" Stan toppled from the impact of two unstoppable forces lunging at him. "OW! My spine for the second time!" Stan cried as his spine was crushed once more by love.

The Twins were bombarding Stan with statements and questions, while he was on the ground, suffering another back injury.

The kids, realizing that he was slightly injured, proceeded to get off of their Grunkle Stan, and give him a few seconds to recover from the force of a hurricane that tackled him. As Stan picked himself up and dusted himself off, the slight frown he had moments ago was now washed away with a massive grin. He darted towards the Twins, picking each one up with one arm, embracing the two, with the sound of joyous laughter coming from his mouth.

"Ok Stan, crushing my sp-LEEN!" Dipper cried, face turning purple from the arm tight around himself.

"Yeah, welcome to the club, you little goblin, Ha-Ha!" Stan joked, now putting down the Twins.

As the Kids were put down by their Great Uncle, they were both hunched over slightly, drawing in the oxygen that they needed but a few moments ago. With their breathing now properly back in motion, the two looked to their left and saw the two other men that were in sore need of a welcome back, just as Stan had got.

"Soos!" Mabel shouted, running at the large, mole-rat like man, hugging him.

"Yo, what's up Hambone?" Soos asked, pulling away from the hug, gently colliding his fist with Mabel's.

"Grunkle Ford!" Dipper said excitedly, hugging his other Great Uncle.

"HAH! I told you at least one of them would miss me!" Ford pointed at Stan, while still being hugged by Dipper.

"Yeah, fine whatever…" Stan grumbled, pulling a ten dollar bill out of his sleeve.

Mabel moved away from Soos, and joined Dipper in hugging Ford. "Don't worry, Grunkle Ford, I missed you too!" Mabel said reassuringly.

"Uh, Stanley…" Ford Grinned, putting his hand out flat, waving his fingers back and forth.

Stan mumbled curses under his breath, pulling out a second ten dollar bill from his sleeve, and putting them Ford's hand.

"You know, for someone that was the nerd in high-school, you turned out to be a real jerk." Stan said, squinting his eyes angrily.

The five in the shop, with the exception of Stan, began to laugh at the obvious deal gone awry for the crooked con-man. But before Stan could even get a peep out to retaliate against the laughter, the front door opened again and a new figure made its way into the Shack. Obviously a woman, slightly shorter than Stan, Ford or Soos, but roughly the same height as Dipper and Mabel. She wore a green plaid shirt, very lightly scuffed pants and a gently tattered lumberjack's cap. She had milky white skin with freckles dotted all around her face. Her head carried long, flowing red hair, with emerald green eyes that were currently looking at the floor.

"Ok, Soos. I know you said to make a banner with glitter and whatever, but I really didn't wan- Oh come on!" Wendy shouted, frustrated that she missed the grand return of Dipper and Mabel.

"WENDY!" Mabel screamed, now lunging at Wendy.

Wendy held her arms open, to receive the impending hug. "Mabes, How you be-OW!" Wendy cried, Mabel now latched onto Wendy like some sort of face hugging alien baby, making her stumble back slightly.

"WENDY, I MISSED YOU AND EVERYONE SO MUCH! OH, AND DIPPER MISSED YOU TOO, AND IT CAN BE LIKE LAST SUMMER, AND WE CAN GO SOLVE MYSTERIES, AND HANG OUT, AND-" Mabel yelled, face-to-face with Wendy.

Wendy Pushed Mabel away, just enough to remove the awkward spacing between the two of them. "Woah, slow down there, girl." Wendy smiled, still as calm as she was last summer.

"Oh. Sorry." Mabel said, letting go of her friend, and making contact with the ground once more.

Dipper walked very slowly towards the redhead. Smiling, he let out very timid "Hey, Wendy."

Wendy held her arms open, motioning Dipper to go over and give her a hug. Dipper almost seemed confused as Wendy invited him to say hello. But after about three of an awkward staring contest, Wendy decided to break the ice. "Come on, what am I, chopped liver?" Wendy said, jokingly.

In the mind of Dipper, Wendy still saw him as the awkward twelve year-old boy from last summer. But this was no longer the case. He was now officially a teenager. He could now use words like 'Chill' and 'Yo' as often as he wanted. He wanted Wendy to see that he's changed since the last time they saw each other. But most of all, he wanted her to think he was cool.

He went to hug Wendy, but very lightly. He used the same amount of force you would give to a friend that you saw every day. As much as he wanted to give a hug on par with the one Grunkle Stan received, He thought to himself to play it cool. Act like a teenager. Dipper pulled away from the hug. But looking back he saw Wendy with a face that seemed to be a mixture of a slight frown and a grin.

"You call that a hug?" Wendy paused, Dipper's eyes shot wide with terror with the thought of messing it up.

But her slight frown went to full smile, her eyes widened as she opened her mouth. "This is a Hug!" Wendy said, grabbing Dipper, holding him in the air with a hug.

All the dread in Dipper's mind was soon erased as it made way for joy. Dipper's arms wrapped around Wendy, with the only thought in his head being 'Ok, maybe I didn't mess it up."

Wendy put Dipper back down on the ground, now satisfied with a proper hello after 10 months of not seeing either him or Mabel. She began to stare at the Twins, squinting, trying to spot what was different about the Twins since the last time she saw them.

"Did you guys get taller?" Wendy asked, holding her thumb and index finger to the corners of her mouth.

"You bet we did!" Mabel said, now back to back with Dipper. "And of course," Mabel paused, putting her hand over her and Dipper's head, showing off her millimeter height advantage.

"The alpha-twin still reigns SUPREME!" Mabel shouted, flailing her hands into the air.

"Well, there's not really such a thing as an alpha twin…" Dipper mumbled to himself, quietly.

Mabel moved herself over to Wendy, leaning against her, and resting her elbow on her shoulder. "But really, I think there's one question we need to ask." Mabel smiled.

"What?" Wendy asked, almost uneasy to hear the answer.

"Did you miss us?" Mabel asked, now resting the side of her head on her own shoulder, with one eyebrow raised, still looking at Wendy.

Wendy, now relieved with the answer to her question opened her mouth to reply. "You bet I missed you guys. If you take away all the ghosts, unicorn brawls, insane child psychics, and apocalypse scenarios-" Wendy was cut off by Mabel.

"Don't forget the shapeshifting nightmare monsters!" Mabel interrupted, reminding her of their journey involving a horrifying shapeshifter.

"Him too! But Gravity Falls is boring when I'm not running for my life from a horrifying creature of unimaginable terror. And you guys brought exactly that to the table." Wendy said.

"Yeah…" Dipper sighed, smiling. But realizing the context of what was just said, his eyes shot open. "Hang on a second…" Dipper said, thinking whether or not Wendy's statement was positive.

"Dude, don't over think it." Wendy said to dipper, arms crossed and smiling.

"Well, I mean-uh-I was just thinking that-uh…something…" Dipper said nervously, trying his hardest to stay 'cool'.

Wendy giggled with her hand over her mouth. "I'm glad to see you're still the same Dipper from last summer."

Dipper's face may have shown happiness, but it was a forced smile. In his mind, frustration and anger brewed until one thought brought itself to the forefront of his brain.

'Ok, maybe I did mess it up' Dipper thought to himself.

Wendy made her way over to the Stan Twins, giving them each a welcome back hug as well.

"So, what have you two been up to since you guys left?" Wendy asked.

"It's been amazing! Throughout our journey, we've tasked ourselves with documenting the ever-expanding phenomena of physical, spiritual, and quantum anomalies! But along the way, we've also had to suppress the anomalies, preventing them from establishing dominance to a region where they shouldn't." Ford explained, with a look of pride on his face.

"Uh…huh?" Wendy questioned, now scratching the back of her head in confusion.

Stan stepped in front of Ford, to better explain their expedition. "We went around to find monsters, and punch them when they were being jerks about something." Stan said, with a much more plain face than his brother.

"Stanley, it was much more than punching things," Ford mentioned, trying to get his twin to understand. "If you let me get my charts-" Ford was cut off by Stan, placing an arm around his shoulder.

"Ford, there's two things I need you to remember: One, you're a nerd. Two, no one understands your science mumbo-jumbo." Stan said, honestly.

"It's not mumbo-jumbo…" Ford said, crossing his arms.

"Hey, could you tell me about that giant squid we saw on the boat?" Stan asked, taking his arm off of his brother.

"Well, it was a class five sub-aquatic cephalopod with amphibious biolog-" Ford was interrupted by Stan, who was now walking towards the kids.

"Oi, if you keep that up, I'll be in a coma in two minutes." Stan mocked Ford, who was without a doubt, now frowning.

As Stan made his wat towards the kids, Dipper walked up to him with a question already loaded.

"Grunkle Stan, why did you two come back? I thought you two always wanted to travel the world and solve any mystery you could find." Dipper asked, who was curious as to why his Great Uncles returned.

Don't worry kid, we're not done adventuring." Stan reassured Dipper. "Look. Me and Ford made a deal after the third month around the world, we had just fought off a den of sentient hand monsters, and while we were back on the boat, we agreed that even though adventuring was our dream, we still needed time off. So we decided that every summer, we'd come back to Gravity Falls to relax, and see you two if you guys came back down." Stan said to the Twins, putting his arms around the two of them.

"Well don't worry, we're here to drive you insane for the rest of the summer." Mabel cheered.

"Or, just a thought, we could have a relaxing summer and do chores around the Shack!" Stan said enthusiastically, putting both hands in the air, and a wide smile on his face.

The frown of Dipper and Mabel's faces couldn't be more disappointed. With both their arms crossed, the glared back at Stan, hinting at him to reconsider his proposal.

"Ok fine, we can do some mystery stuff, but not too much." Stan sighed, the enthusiasm gone from his voice.

"Oi, this town's gonna kill me, I know it." Stan mumbled under his breath.

Seeing Stan now out of the energy that he previously had, Soos made his way over to him, in an attempt to cheer him up.

"Don't worry, Mister Pines. I could give Dipper and Mabel a tour of the Shack. You can go relax or something for a while." Soos reassured Stan.

"How long does it take?" Stan asked.

'Well, we'll go through the tour, then we'll go see all the cool bits I added, and some other stuff, so I'd say, like…a few hours?" Soos said, guessing the time it would take to give a full tour.

Stan pushed the Twins over to Soos. "Take 'em. I'm going to lie down." Stan grumbled, making his into the living room, and onto the recliner.

"Wendy, can you restock the shelves?" Soos questioned Wendy.

"Do I get payed over-time?" Wendy asked with a confident smile.

"Uh…Sure."

"Then, you got it, Boss-man" Wendy replied, now grabbing a box of merchandise from behind the register.

"I guess I'll go relax as well. You know where to find me." Ford said, joining his brother in the living room.

As the group finished their re-introductions, Soos kept his promise to give a personal tour of the 'New-and-improved Mystery Shack' to Dipper and Mabel. The Twins were amazed with the new collection of authentic fake attractions. Some old, some new, every corner they looked, there was a new surprise and a smile to accompany it.

* * *

"Over here, we see the fabled Worminator!" Soos said, pointing to a metallic worm skeleton, which looked like a long, thick, twisted wire with a red flashlight welded to the end of it.

"The Worminator?" Dipper asked, scratching the back of his head.

"Yeah, dude. Legend tells of the mysterious Worminator! A machine created by the worm-built A.I., GROUND-NET. It was sent back in time to track down the CEO of a digging company, by the name of Josh Connor, but only at the age of 10 years old! It was like crazy-bonkers confusing, dude." Soos explained.

"That sounds soooo awesome!" Mabel said, eyeing the mechanical worm.

"It gets even more awesome, Hambone," Soos paused, turning to the statue. "The best part about this thing, is if you poke it, it says a cool catchphrase with a German accent." Soos mentioned, motioning to the Twins to poke it.

Dipper crept up to the statue, poking it on the red flashlight. "Chill out, dirtwad. I'll be back. Hasta la vista, Wormy." The worm said, with an Austrian accent instead of German.

Mabel's face quickly went from confused, to enthralled. She wore a large grin on her face as she went to poke the statue. "Get to the CHOPPA!" The worm shouted.

"I don't think it's ever said that one before. Huh. Weird." Soos said, slightly shocked by the unheard dialogue.

The three made their way to then end of the tour, and back into the gift shop. Dipper looked to the clock and saw that it said 4:00. Unlike a few hours ago, the gift shop was much emptier now, with the exception of Wendy, who was restocking the shelves with various types of cheaply made souvenirs.

"Wendy, you done with the shelves yet?" Soos asked.

"Yeah, almost, I've got another box of bobbleheads, and after that I should be done." Wendy said, pulling up another box from beneath her.

"Where's Ford and Stan?" Dipper asked, looking around the gift shop in hopes of finding them.

"The last I saw of them, they were in the kitchen. I could swear I heard them say something about 'Making dinner tonight." Wendy informed Dipper, whose face, along with Mabel's, was now showing obvious signs of fear.

"Oh-no. We have to get out of the Shack. NOW!" Dipper shouted, as he and Mabel sprinted towards the door.

"Yikes. What's so scary about them cooking?" Wendy asked calmly.

"Wendy, think about it! You have two stubborn old dudes, both of them can't see an inch past their faces without their glasses. One is a mad scientist who always makes an invention to solve a problem, and the other is willing to serve expired gunk if it save him a few bucks!" Mabel cried, motioning to leap out the door.

Wendy grabbed the two by the shoulders, pulling them back in to Shack. "Come on, guys. Don't you think you're overreacting just a teensy-bit?" Wendy asked, skeptical towards Dipper and Mabel.

On cue, a large amount of yelling could be heard from the kitchen. The voices were familiar to the four in the nearly empty gift shop. Stan and Ford could be heard, shouting various metaphors, slang terms, and curses at each other.

"Why can't you just make food properly?" Stan shouted at Ford, his voice obviously coming from the kitchen.

"This IS how you make food properly! Why can't you just let my inventions do what they do?" Ford yelled back at Stan.

"Are you kidding me?! You put a freaking ball of newspaper in one end, and you want me to eat what comes out?" Stan screamed.

The Twins along with Soos and Wendy made their way to the back of the Shack, to get a better understanding of the shouting. There in the kitchen, Stan and Ford were on opposite ends of the table, standing up and arms flailing angrily. Behind Stan was the stove. There, the sight of a boiling pot, filled to the brim with a mushy, brown substance could be seen. To the left of the stove, on the counter, three tin cans lay empty, all opened and each one printed with the words 'Brown Meat' upon them.

On the table between the two, a large metallic box shaped object lied on the table. It had a large silver funnel extruding from the top, leading into a tube, which presumably processed the inserted ingredients once they entered the box. On either side of the box, computer screens, with some sort of unreadable data could be seen. Underneath the screens, several knobs and levers flashed and sounded, while small amounts of electricity could be seen traversing the exterior. On the end of the box, a small conveyer belt lead out from the machine and currently held out a plate with a particularly delicious looking hamburger on it.

With the two still in their heated debate, Ford opened his mouth to speak. "It's completely safe, Stanley." Ford gritted his teeth. "All it does is reform the molecules of what you put in, and out comes your food."

"OH, OKAY! Then let me just get some mold from the back of the fridge, and me can all have some milkshakes!" Stan snapped sarcastically.

"Please, Stanley! Just give it a shot." Ford said, his face filled with anger.

The four that were previously in the gift shop emerged in the door way, and spilled into the kitchen. The two older men paused their argument, and turned towards the new faces that had shown up in the middle of their anger.

"What the heck's happening?" Mabel shouted, getting Stan and Ford's attention.

"Oh, nothing sweetie. My favorite brother here just wanted to make you guys a lovely dinner consisted of roadkill and some gunk he found at the bottom of his shoe." Stan said, glaring at Ford.

"Stan, stop it!" Ford snapped, pointing one of his twelve fingers at Stan.

"Look, as long as my food is still here, I'm not letting you feed anyone with that thing!" Stan retorted.

As the words were expelled from Stan's mouth, the pot of brown meat behind spontaneously caught fire. As the stove was soon engulfed with flame, Stan grabbed a fire extinguisher on the wall and rapidly put out the fire. When he turned back to the others in the kitchen, the look on his brother's face made him furious. With an arm resting on his side, Ford's eyebrow rose up along his forehead, with the most pretentious cocked eyebrow Stan has ever seen, and to top it all off, the smirk Ford wore sent Stan into a rage.

"There's no way in hell I'm eating anything from that rust bucket!" Stan shouted, now lunging at the machine and picking it up off the table.

"Stan! Put it down!" Ford shouted, grabbing the back of the machine, fighting Stan for it.

"Not. Happening. EVER!" Stan screamed. As he pulled back on the metallic box, he pulled out of Ford's hands, and by extension, throwing it out of his own hands.

The Machine made a large crashing sound as it collided with the wooden floor. The lights of the machine quickly dimmed, and then proceeded to shut off entirely. The six in the room let out a sigh of relief, expecting the machine to burst out into a horrible explosion of cataclysmic proportions.

As Stan and Ford were about to resume their argument, the machine shocked itself back into working condition. The crack at the bottom of the machine, where it was dropped, began to puff out a large plume of black smoke. The screens on the side began to light up, getting brighter and brighter by the second, until the light was so blinding, the glass shattered onto the floor. The now empty sockets spit out vigorous amounts of electric shocks. Blue lightning bolts, began to shoot out all over the kitchen, but particularly the pot of burnt brown meat, and everyone else that was standing near it.

The machine continued to jump and whir as it smashed itself into the table, pushing several balls of crumpled up newspaper into the large funnel protruding from the top. As the paper fell in, the knobs and levers began to light up, and a large amount of a mysterious substance began to come of the machine on the conveyor belt.

With the substance now on the floor, the machine died once more, and this time, for good. As everything calmed down in the kitchen, everyone checked themselves to see if anything was broken, or if there were any appendages where there shouldn't be. But all in all, everyone was fine.

"Is everyone alright?" Ford asked, checking for damage.

"Yeah." Everyone said in unison.

"Well, at least you're all ok." Ford said, with a relieved smile on his face.

"*cough* Yeah, no thanks to you. *cough*." Stan added, coughing from the smoke in the room.

"Hey, at least everything's all-" Ford's words stopped dead in their tracks.

Everyone looked over to Ford whose eyes were fixated on the pile of suspicious matter on the floor. They then proceeded to look over to where he was looking, and immediately replicated his expression.

The pile, formerly steaming from the heat that the machine produced was no longer just unappetizing. It was moving. The pile moved itself until it formed a hefty pile of disgusting brown matter that was just a foot shorter than Soos. Around the top of the hulking mass, a giant eyeball formed. Menacing and red, it stared down those in the kitchen. As the eye peered around the room, a piece of the mass came down over its eye, almost like it seemed angry.

Four tentacle shaped appendages began to form on either side of the monster, each one squirming about, and whipping back and forth. And out from under the eye, a large hole formed, appearing it be a mouth. Opening up now, the people inside the Shack covered their ears, expecting a blood-curdling scream to come from the monster.

But there was no scream. Only a small, throat clearing cough.

"Greeting, denizens of this plane." The monster said, with a surprisingly light human voice.

Dipper stepped forward from behind Soos and Mabel, approaching the monster very slowly. "Uh…Hey. How's it going?" Dipper asked timidly.

"Well, aren't you a gentleman!" The monster happily said, holding one tentacle to its face. "You know, it's really hard to find people with good manners in this day and age. Like, this one time… Actually come to think of it, I have no memory of anything past 24 seconds ago." The monster said confusingly.

"I mean, you were born, like, that many seconds ago." Wendy explained, skeptical to the monster's innocence.

"No kidding? Wow. I was BORN. That's so cool! Can you guys believe it? I was born! Nice." The monster said, flailing his arms with joy.

"Do you have a name?" Mabel asked, eyes filled with wonder.

"You know what? I don't. I wish I did though…" The monster gently frowned.

"How about we call you MEATULOPS! THE SQUISHY!" Mabel shouted, trying to give a name to the monster.

"Uh, Mabel? Maybe we shouldn't gi-" Dipper was cut off by the monster's excitement.

"Meatulops, huh? I love it!" The monster shouted with glee.

Wendy leaned over to Mabel. "Meatulops? Really?" Wendy whispered.

"Well, yeah. He looks like he's made of that brown meat gunk, so I thought it would be a great name!" Mabel squealed, delighted by the name she created.

"Hang on a second…" Dipper trailed off eyeing the monster, and identifying the properties of the monster. "Are you made of brown meat?" Dipper asked to the monster, his words dripping with curiosity.

"Of course I'm made of brown meat! I don't know how, but I'm made of this-" Meatulops stopped, and his face made it seem that he was remembering something. "Wait a second, I remember why I'm here!" He said, with a joyous tine in his voice.

"You do?" Dipper asked, wondering to himself how something created less than a few minutes ago can remember why it's here.

"You bet I can! You see, being made of brown meat, I retain the memories of all brown meat." Meatulops explained.

"Wait, hold the phone. You're telling me that meat can remember stuff? Aww man, I really feel bad for that plate of bacon I left in the fridge." Soos said, saddened by the thought of sad bacon.

"Yep, all meat can carry memories. While not actually alive, the meat retains knowledge within itself. And brown meat is the most intelligent meat to be created. You see, brown meat doesn't live a life of glamour like those celebrity steaks they keep at the supermarket. Brown meat lives a life of sadness. It lives a life in a pitch black can, and on the bargain shelf where no one even bats an eye at it." Meatulops frowned.

"That's so sad!" Mabel said, going to give the meat pile a hug, but being held back by Soos.

"Indeed. But after reliving the lives of several million cans of brown meat within my sudden creation, I have made the choice to avenge my fallen brothers and sisters, and devour all in my path, and convert them to the true power of brown meat. It's actually pretty cool." Meatulops said proudly, holding two of his tentacles to what his side appears to be.

"Hang on, does that mean you're going to eat us?" Stan asked anxiously.

"Well, you guys aren't brown meat, and you're in my path, so…yeah, I guess." Meatulops explained, with an almost confused look on his face.

But Meatulops' face quickly went from confused, to enraged. He opened his mouth to reveal row after row after row of razor sharp, circulating rings of teeth. On top of the terrifying image before everyone in the Shack, he finally let out that blood-curdling screech that they were expecting earlier.

Without warning, two of his tentacles reached out towards Stan. Ensnaring him in his putrid brown meat made tentacles. Stan was being pulled towards the horrifying abomination before him, being dragged against his will towards a mouthful of dangerous rotating fangs. As he was but a couple feet away from the monster, Soos jumped onto the tentacle, biting into it, tearing it in two.

Meatulops let out a high pitch scream while letting go of Stan. As Stan was crawling his way away from the pile of meat, the previously lost tentacle was replenished, and was of course, still made of brown meat.

"What are we going to do?" Ford asked, while fighting off one of the tentacles with a kitchen knife.

"Well, we can't eat him." Soos said, swallowing the chunk of meat he bit off of Meatulops. "He keeps growing his tentacle bits back, and I don't think I can eat that much brown meat.

Dipper did his best, to think of a plan, but he didn't have anything. Not even a plan for a distraction. All he had was, a thought of eating the beast, but Soos proved that it wasn't any good.

"We just need some place that isn't anywhere that we could put him in!" Mabel shouted, fighting off another one of the tentacles.

Then the light bulb in his headed finally showed up. He thought of the one place that Meatulops couldn't get out of, or find anyone else to eat.

Dipper dashed out from the doorway, grabbing a large frying pan and a metal spoon as he passed the counter. He stood before the hulking mass of meat, holding up the pan. "Hey, Meat Face!" Dipper called the monster out. It wasn't the best name he could come up with, but it was enough to get his attention.

Meatulops turned stopped flailing his tentacles, and faced Dipper. His gigantic eye staring him down, and his horrifying rows of teeth stood at the ready to devour him.

"You know, Meat face is a derogatory term. And to think I thought you had manners!" Meatulops cried, obviously offended.

"Says the monster who wants to devour all of humanity!" Dipper shouter, pointing an accusing finger at the monster.

"I don't want to eat ALL of humanity, just most of it!" Meatulops replied, attempting give reason to his actions.

"Well, good luck with that. How can you eat everyone when you can't even eat six people in a small room?" Dipper said, knowing he could get a rise out of the meat pile.

"I-uh-I can-well-uh… I-I bet I could eat you, no problem!" Meatulops cried, flustered from the words that Dipper said.

Dipper walked right up to Meatulops, and stared directly into his eye. He wore a cocky smirk with arched eyebrows that put the monster on edge. He opened his mouth very slowly, trying to get out the most dramatic effect he could.

"Try me." Dipper said, almost angrily.

The look on Meatulops' face went from angry, to pure blinding rage. His mouth opened and let out the loudest screech possible, and made everyone in the kitchen cover their ears, even Dipper. As the screeching stopped, Dipper ran through the kitchen doorway, and sprinted his way out the Shack's front door. The hulking mass of meat began to flail its tentacles, and follow him out of the Shack.

As Meatulops made his way out the Shack's front door, he looked around in hopes of finding Dipper. His eye searched all around but all he could see was a bike by the porch, the El Diablo dragster, and the thick layer of trees that surrounded the building. As he was about to head back inside to finish what he had started. A loud, high-pitched sound grabbed his attention. He turned around to see Dipper emerging from behind the totem pole and whistling at him.

"For someone who has the memories of his entire species, you're pretty stupid!" Dipper shouted.

"OH YEAH? Well,-uh-you're…Stupid…er!" Meatulops shouted back, struggling to come up with a good comeback.

Dipper proceeded to run away from the Shack, into the forest. Meatulops followed, whipping his tentacles out towards his, and screeching loud enough to shatter glass. As the meat monster chased Dipper into the woods, everyone in the kitchen finally made their way outside.

"Oh God! He's gonna eat him!" Mabel cried, holding both hands to her cheeks.

"We got to catch him, like, now, dudes!" Soos said, now running into the woods.

"Come on, let's go!" Wendy yelled, grabbing Mabel, and following Soos into the thick woods.

Stan and Ford stood on the porch. Ford seemed as worried as he could possibly be, But Stan on the other hand just appeared to be annoyed.

"Come on Stanley, We have to go help them!" Ford blurted, getting ready to run.

"Ah, don't worry. These kids'll be fine. They've dealt with worse." Stan said, dismissing the danger.

"Well, I'm not just standing around while this abomination can hurt anyone." Ford began to run into the forest, in hopes of helping out his nephew.

Stan, now alone on the front porch, made his way back into the Shack. But as he took his first step into the building, one thought formed in his mind.

'Wait a second… Aren't I his current legal guardian?' Stan thought to himself.

Then it dawned on him. The realization of what would happen if that monster got a hold of Dipper.

"I could get sued…" Stan whispered to himself, eyes opened as wide as they could.

The second the words finished exiting his mouth, Stan let out a loud, menacing roar. Ripping off both sleeves from his suit jacket, he pulled out a pair of brass knuckles from his pants pockets. The left one had the word 'S T A N' stamped into the knuckles, while the other unsurprisingly, read the word 'F O R D'.

"DON'T WORRY DIPPER! GRUNKLE STAN'S COMIN' TO SAVE YA!" Stan shouted, now following everyone into the trees.

With everyone now chasing Dipper and Meatulops through the woods, Dipper realized that he was only about a hundred feet away from his destination.

As he began to slow down, Dipper saw exactly what he wanted see. He looked down towards the ground and saw large hole that seemed almost unnatural in its placement. Inside the hole, there was nothing. Only the color black. And to the left of the whole, a large, shoddy wooden sign could be seen reading the words he really wanted to see right now.

'BOTTOMLESS PIT' the sign read.

With the elements in Dipper's plant coming into play, he turned around, ready to wait for Meatulops to show up. But to Dipper's surprise, he was already there. Only about six feet away, Meatulops stood, his tentacles squirming quite calmly, and his gargantuan eye staring at him menacingly.

"End of the line, kid. You know, I really liked you guys when I first met you. I really did, no jokes. But all I said was that I wanted to devour all human life to avenge cans of my brethren, and all of a sudden, I'm the bad guy!" Meatulops shouted, confused by the betrayal of his friendship.

"I don't need to worry, you'll never get to eat me anyway." Dipper said, backing up slowly towards the bottomless pit.

"Oh yeah? And why's that?" Meatulops asked, now crossing his tentacles together.

"Because I'm going to the one place you'll never get the chance." Dipper turned away from the monster, and faced the pit. He looked down into the bottomless void, and made a loud gulp as he peered over the edge. But before Meatulops could make another badly worded, stutter-filled remark, Dipper had jumped into the pit, disappearing into the void.

Meatulops' eye shot open, and the returned to the angry expression he had earlier. He flailed his arms in rage, and made his way over to the hole in the earth.

"Oh no you don't!" He yelled as he jumped into the pit.

Seconds had gone by, and the area around the pit was now empty. Where there was originally the angry sounds of conflict, there was only the sound of the gentle breeze that grazed the trees as it passed. But out from the bottomless pit, a new sound arose. The sound of screaming became louder and louder until it was without a doubt rising from below the pit. As the screaming came to the surface of the pit, Dipper shot out from the middle, and landed face first in the dirt just off the side of the pit.

He picked himself off the ground, spitting out dirt that had made its way into his mouth. "Ow… Everything hurts…" Dipper complained, holding his back in pain.

In front of him, the trees and shrubs were rustling violently, as if a gargantuan creature was ready to spring out, and devour him much like the previous monster did. But instead, out from one of the shrubs, a girl with long brown hair and a bright pink sweater bolted her way towards Dipper, while waving around a very large stick.

"GET AWAY FROM MY BROTHER, YOU STUPID UGLY- oh." Mabel stopped, realizing her brother was no longer in danger.

Out from behind Mabel, Stan, Ford, Soos and Wendy emerged from the overgrowth, all carrying makeshift bats, much like the one Mabel was carrying.

"Where's Meatucus, or whatever his name was?" Stan asked, looking around to find the monster.

"Don't worry, Grunkle Stan, He's gone." Dipper said tiredly, the adrenaline now leaving his body.

"Well, where did he- Aww, dude, did you put him in the bottomless pit?" Soos wondered, ready to be impressed.

"Yeah, we both just kind of jumped in." Dipper explained, now breathing heavily.

"Nice, Dude." Soos said, giving Dipper a high five. "Much like every other problem that arises, this one could be solved with a pit of pure nothingness." Soos said, with Mabel taking in every wise word.

"But wait, how did you come back, and the stupid meat thing didn't?" Mabel asked, questioning the physics of the pit.

"I have a theory. Living tissue is sent back out of the pit, while inanimate, or dead tissue stay in the pit. And seeing how Meatulops was made of canned meat, he was fo-" Dipper explained once more, but was cut off by Mabel's groaning.

"Nerd science. Got it." Mabel smiled, in an attempt to get Dipper to stop talking.

"So, what do we do now?" Wendy asked, while everyone looked to each other in hopes of receiving an answer.

"Look, I got, like, thirty bucks. Let's just get a pizza or something. But no extra toppings! I'm not made of money." Stan offered, breaking the silence.

It was now around 9:00 o'clock in the Mystery Shack. Wendy had gone home, Soos was just sweeping up meat that was left over from the meat monster earlier, and the Twins were in their room. They would have stayed up later. But after being nearly eaten by a completely sentient pile of discount meat product, everyone decided to call it quits and hit the hay early.

In the room above the shack, the Twins set themselves up exactly how they wanted it. On Mabel's side, she had multiple boy band posters hanging by a few strips of cheap, dollar store tape. Her bed was covered in a light pink, sparkly blanket, along with multiple types of stuffed animals. On Dipper's side of the room, he kept a few books on the night stand, and several pages with sketches on the wall next to his bed. While he only had a blanket and pillow compared to his sister's mountain of stuffed animals, he didn't need it. At the foot of their beds, were their bags, boxes and various other words starting with 'B'. And for the next few months, it was their home.

The lantern was still lit on their nightstand, while Dipper read one of his mystery books, titled 'Weird symbols: why and how to avoid them', Mabel read of her magazines, to no shock, this one was about her new favorite boy band: 'There's like, a few directions.'

"Even though I would wake up covered in splinters, centipedes and cuts where there shouldn't be, I'm glad were back in this crummy old room." Dipper said, now putting down his book.

"I know! And best of all, we get to do all the Mystery Twins stuff again!" Mabel said cheerily.

"I thought the mystery stuff was more my thing." Dipper added, wondering what his sister meant.

"Yeah, it was, but after being chased by that stupid jerk-face, I remembered how much fun it was during our first summer." Mabel explained, now putting down her magazine.

"Well, we'll have more mysteries soon. But now I just want to go to sleep." Dipper said, now turning off the lantern.

"Goodnight, Dipping sauce." Mabel said, yawning as she went to sleep.

"Goodnight, Mabel."

After a few minutes of the lights being off, a new thought came to Mabel. One that troubled her, and most of all, one that Dipper would want to hear.

"Hey, Dipper?" Mabel mumbled.

"Yeah?" Dipper asked, sounding like he just woke up.

"Do you remember the Bill statue that was left after Weirdmageddon?" Mabel questioned Dipper.

"Yeah, What about it?"

"Can we go find it tomorrow? I really want to punch it." Mabel said, adoring the idea in her mind.

"Sure, but for now, let's go to sleep." Dipper said, now going to sleep.

Just outside the door, Stan and Ford were listening in on their conversation, looking worried about what was just said.

"Should we tell them?" Ford asked, now walking back down the stairs.

"Nah. We'll tell them tomorrow. Just let them sleep now." Stan said, joining his brother in the living room.

As the two brothers made their way back to their makeshift living arrangements, they laid down on their beds, dreading the thought of telling the kids the truth of what they had learned. But until morning, they held their tongues.

* * *

(Just remember, Brown meat has feelings too. So ladies and gentlemen, this chapter/episode is completed. Hooray! How exciting! Here's to writing some things because my brain misses the show. YAY! I really hope you guys enjoyed it, and if you did, please leave a review. I always love a good stroke to the ego, or nicely worded criticisms do just fine. If anyone is wondering about a schedule for these things, I don't really have one yet, but by the time chapter/episode 2 comes out, I'm pretty sure I'll have one. In the next part, we'll meet some old characters, some new ones and maybe some other fun stuff. The last thing I'll tell you before I let you go, is remember to suggest stuff to me. If there's something you want to see in this story, tell me, and if I like it, or you guys want it enough, I'll add it in. I do have a plan on where this story is going, but I'd be more than happy to make any of your ideas into a chapter. So with that final note, Good day.

See ya 'round.)

* * *

With the day now ending, and the dark night taking over the town of Gravity Falls, a new wave of calm was brought unto the town. The citizens of the sleepy logging town laid in their beds and various other sleeping arrangements after a long day of hard work. Where there were the sound of cars and people talking, there was now only the sound of the wind, and the soothing noises produced by the multiple creeks and rivers that surrounded the region. The birds stopped their chirping, the bees quit their buzzing, and the blue sky decided to stop being blue. Well, at least for a while. Even a cliché tourist trap got the rest it deserved, after the welcome-home rollercoaster that it had enjoyed throughout the entire day. And, after a day of good times, there was finally peace.

Or so you would think.

Deep below the now resting town of Gravity Falls, the earth echoed with odd sounds, not natural to the ground. The lower you went, the louder the sounds got, and the clearer they became. What could have easily been mistaken as the burrowing of several underground mammals was actually more sinister. It almost sounded like people. It almost sounded like chanting.

A dark hallway, lit only by a few candles is where a lone figure could be seen, traversing it. The wax from the candles splattered where they stood, leaving one to believe that they were there a long time. At the end of the hallway, a room opened up, with walls and a ceiling, unable to be seen by anyone, was lit with candle in the same fashion as the hall before it. The figure walked onto a long red carpet, that started once the hallway ended, and reached a wide set of stairs, on top of which, there appeared to be a seat of some sort, shrouded by the darkness. The figure knelt before the steps, with his head facing the floor and his wrists facing upwards to the empty 'sky'. The figure wore a long, buttoned up black robe with the sleeves rolled up to his forearm, brown cargo pants with various pockets and belts, and a red undershirt. On his hooded face, a burlap mask could be seen, with only an empty black eye on the left, nothing on the right side, and a stitched on smile where the mouth would have been.

"Greetings Master. I sense you are doing well." The figure said, speaking up the shadowy stairs.

Nothing replied back.

"Why yes, of course. Our sources say that the object you have been searching for has been found, and recovered. It should be on its way now." The figure, still speaking to the void.

The void said nothing.

The figure's head twitched. "Please forgive me, Master. I know you wish it to be here now. But I couldn't ge-" The figure pleaded, now clutching his head in agony.

The air grew colder around the steps.

"I understand. Do what you must." The figure's body began to twitch more, and more vigorously. As if unbearable pain was being inflicted upon him.

The figure, now recovering from the spasms and odd contortions his body was forced into doing, resumed the original position he had. "Thank you, Master. My apologies for disrespecting your wishes." The figure said, smiling behind his mask.

The air warmed up to the original temperature.

"Yes, your men and women are ready to carry out anything you desire. They'll put aside the digging, but once they return, they should be back at it." The figure said, attempting to cheer up the shadows.

The faint humming and sound of chanting stopped. Almost as if the void wished to tune out all sound to speak. The figure bowed his head lower, appearing to listen to what it was saying.

"But what about them? They are but mere children!" The figure cried, now grabbing his head once more.

The air warmed up a little more, almost apologetically.

"My deepest apologies, Master. I didn't mean to raise my voice. I could destroy their home, and slaughter them in their sleep. Would that appease you?" The figure asked, speaking out to the void.

The void answered back.

"Do not worry, my child. I have a few plans for them, myself." The void said in a deep, almost soothing voice.

 **DKG VR LW EHJLQV**


	3. Chapter 2: In my Element

Chapter 2: In my Element

(Welcome back, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have returned once more to the town of Gravity Falls for a while, just to get a little bit more of this lovely Oregon town. If you're reading this, it means I must be doing something right. Hooray for adequacy! But on a more serious note, I've decided upon a schedule. Every Monday there should be a chapter uploaded, and if there isn't, whoops. But seriously, if it's not up on Monday, it means that I haven't had time to write. SO apologies in advance should it happen. Now I can sense you guys want me to shut up, and so I shall! Come on, let's get this rolling, shall we?)

It was a breezy day as the sun rose over the sleepy town of Gravity Falls, and all was quiet in the area surrounding the Mystery Shack. The birds, who made their nests in the nearby totem pole, were singing their tune, ushering in a new day, and allowing any who heard their song to feel at ease. The grass in the ground, jumped up, and swayed with the wind. The several insects that had made the tourist trap their home, going about their lives and doing their part to sustain the ecosystem. The ants burrowed through the earth, making their tunnels to appease the queen. The spiders wove their webs, controlling the population of flying bugs by ensnaring them in their silken mosaic. And the centipedes, who made themselves at home in the damp sections of the shack were…actually quite disgusting if you looked at them.

On the second floor of the mysterious building, a room could be seen when peering in through the evil looking triangular windows. And within the room two people could be seen sleeping in separate beds, opposite to one-another.

In the bed to the right of the room, Mabel could be seen in her bed, wearing a long sweater as pyjamas, snoring quite loudly, and slowly moving her head back and forth, as though she was having a dream. The light from outside the building made its way into the room, shining itself onto Mabel's eyes. The light seemed to disturb her, as her face went from delighted, to angry. She turned over, now laying on her back, her eyes peeled open, to reveal a set of angry, tired and bloodshot eyes. She began to push the covers off of her, and sit up in her bed, wearing an undoubtedly furious expression on her face.

"Stupid Sun, waking me up from the best dream ever." Mabel grumbled, now crossing her arms.

On the other side of the room, in the opposite bed, Dipper rustled around, wearing his red undershirt and black shorts, woke up as well. Contrary to his sister, he woke up with a happy expression. He stretched his arms upwards and yawned, slowly opening his eyes to reveal that they were not angry, tired or bloodshot, but rather happy, rested and white as clouds. He got up as well, moving the warm blanket off of himself and sat upright, only to see his sister up before him.

"Good morning, Mabel. How'd you sleep?" Dipper asked, smiling.

"Can it!" Mabel snapped back, staring right through him.

"Whoa, there. What's up with you?" Dipper asked, trying to defuse the situation.

"I had the best dream ever, and the jerk-face Sun woke me up with its stupid rays of light" Mabel replied, looking away from Dipper.

"Well, what was the dream?" Dipper questioned, trying to sympathize with his twin.

"I was here at the Shack, and I was running around outside." Mabel paused. "I was running so fast, it felt like it was windy, and I was laughing. But I could hear something that was louder than me laughing. And I-I thought I could hear…" Mabel stopped herself, her lip trembling.

As soon as she stopped, Dipper saw her eyes holding back tears, and he knew exactly what she was talking about. He had seen this before. A week after they came back from Gravity Falls, it happened. When she was having a great day at school, it happened. And when they decided to go back, it happened.

"Oh. You had _That_ dream again." Dipper said, now avoiding eye contact.

Mabel said nothing. She only faced the ground, and nodded.

"Would a hug make you feel better?" Dipper asked, holding his arms out.

Mabel shrugged, not making a noise.

He got up from his bed, crossing the gap between them, and sat down next to his sister. He hated seeing her like this. For someone that was always cheery, excited and fun, watching this was beyond upsetting for him.

He put one arm around her, resting his elbow on her shoulder, and pulled her towards him. As soon as he settled, she leaned her head on his shoulder, trying her best to get these awful feelings out of her system.

"Look, I know what that dream does to you, and you know I don't like seeing you like this." Dipper said reassuringly.

Mabel finally looked up, her eyes red and puffy, she opened her mouth to speak. "I know, I just get so happy when it happens. I get to run without being tired, and I even g-get to-o he-hear…" Mabel stopped again, this time, choking up as the thoughts in her head played in her mind.

"It's ok, you don't have to say it." Dipper said, doing everything in his power to make his sister feel better.

Mabel held up a fist to her mouth, trying her hardest to hold back a sob. "…no, it's fine. It's just that when I have that dream, I feel happier than ever. But when I wake up, I realize that it was a dream, and then, well…you know what I'm like." Mabel explained, wearing a forced smile on her face.

"Yeah, you are pretty grumpy afterwards." Dipper chuckled, hoping Mabel would join it.

Only a forced laugh could be heard from Mabel. It may have been forced, but at least it was something. But once the laugh ended, there was only silence.

After a few moments of quiet, Dipper decided to break it. "You know, even though it doesn't seem like it that much, I miss him too." Dipper said, leaning forwards to see Mabel's face under her hair.

But even through Dipper's attempt at cheering her up, Mabel said nothing back. She just leaned forward, held both hand to her eyes, and refused to make a noise. And even though her body language said that she wanted to be left alone, Dipper still made an attempt.

"Think about this, we can go see the Bill statue today. That'd be fun, right?" Dipper smiled, still doing his best to make Mabel feel better.

Hearing her brother's offer, Mabel finally lifted her head up, but only to reveal a completely hollow expression.

"I don't want to do anything today. You go on without me." Mabel said sullenly, looking in front of her.

"Come on, it'll be fun! We can go punch it like you wanted." Dipper said, still poking verbally at Mabel.

"No thanks, I'm good." Mabel mumbled through her teeth.

"But, you wanted to last night. Well, maybe later if you fell bet-" Dipper offered, unaware to Mabel's growing frustration.

"I said NO!" Mabel shouted, now breathing heavily.

Dipper jumped backwards slightly, surprised and hurt that his sister yelled at him. The girl who made smiling her default expression, just yelled at him. As Mabel's breathing calmed down, her face went from enraged, to saddened once again. Her eyes began to well up, as she realized what had just happened.

"I'm sorry…" Mabel said quietly, holding her knuckles to her mouth.

"Uh…It's ok. I probably shouldn't have kept going." Dipper apologized, scratching the back of his head.

"Still, you were just trying to cheer me up…" Mabel sighed, her face going red with embarrassment.

"Don't worry Mabes, it's all good. Now come on," Dipper got up from the bed. "The sun's coming up. We should get breakfast before Soos eats it all." He said, holding his fists to his sides.

* * *

In the kitchen of the Mystery Shack, the scent of bacon was present. Admittedly, it was the scent of burnt bacon, but it smelled delicious nonetheless. At the kitchen table, Ford was sitting down, with a mug of black coffee. At the stove, Stan was causing the scent of burnt bacon. With oven mitts on each hands, and with a wife beater, boxer shorts, slippers combo, he proceeded to put the bacon on a plate, which he then placed in the middle of the table, in front of his brother.

"Uh…I think you burnt it, Stanley." Ford said, eyeing the charcoal black meat.

"Oh, quit complaining. It locks in the flavor." Stan explained, dismissing Ford's complaints.

"Well, I guess it's still better than that 'Shrunken-Head jerky' we had in Madagascar." Ford mentioned.

"Ugh…I still remember the teeth…" Stan shivered, reminiscing of the horrid substance he ate.

But while the two debated the topic of less-than-edible food, Dipper emerged from the doorway, seeming almost worried, although neither Stan, nor Ford noticed it at first.

"Mornin', Dipper. How'd you sleep?" Ford asked, sipping from his cup of coffee.

"Meh. There weren't any giant termites like last summer, so I can't complain." Dipper said.

"Hey, you should be thankful for those termites. If it weren't for them, there wouldn't be any air flowing through that room." Stan said, thinking of the various holes the massive termites had left.

"Wait, you let termi- You know what, never mind." Ford sighed.

"Have you guys seen Soos? Shouldn't he be in here, like, eating or something?" Dipper asked.

"You know, we thought the same thing. But he woke up early, went to the front room, and started to clean the Shack. I'm tellin' ya, he puts way to much effort into one of my scams." Stan explained.

"Well at least that means there's still some…" Dipper sniffed, smelling the air. "…Burnt bacon left." Dipper said with a slight frown.

"Tell me about it." Ford said, looking at the plate of charred meat.

As soon as Ford finished, Stan noticed something that was quite odd for the boy in front of him. "Hang on, where's Mabel, Isn't she usually up before you and bugging me?" Stan asked.

"Yeah, about that, I forgot to tell you guys something last night." Dipper said, with a worried look on his face.

"Well, if it's Mabel, it can't be that bad." Stan added.

"See, you say that now, but it makes being around her… difficult." Dipper continued, not looking at either of his Great Uncles.

"What is it?" Ford asked, now putting down his empty cup of coffee.

Dipper sat down at the table, with Ford already sitting and Stan joining them at the end. As Dipper made himself comfortable in the splintery wood chair, his face wearing a visage of dread. As Stan and Ford leaned forward to hear their nephew, he opened his mouth to speak.

"Ok. Every now and then Mabel would have a dream. In the dream she would always be running around, and it would be either at home, in town, or back here at the Shack. During most of it, she said that she would run for hours and never get tired, but she would keep running, and she won't stop." Dipper explained.

"Alright, doesn't sound that bad. Still better than my dreams." Stan said, motioning his hand towards Dipper.

"Well, it gets worse. After a while of running, she always starts to laugh. But when she starts laughing, she starts to hear…well…" Dipper trailed, fearing what he would have to say.

"Get on with it, I'm on the edge of seat!" Stan said loudly, frustrated by Dipper's storytelling abilities.

But as Stan stopped speaking, Dipper's face was filled with dread. He looked down towards the table, and from his mouth, he uttered something very quietly.

"She could hear Waddles."

"What's wrong with that?" Ford asked. But with further thought, he realized something wasn't right when the Twins came back. "Come to think of it though, I don't remember seeing the pig when you two got back." Ford said, wondering why this was a dilemma.

Dipper took in a deep breath, as though explaining the issue with the dream was draining. "Before we even got home, while we were still in the bus, Mabel was going crazy over the thought of showing Waddles to Mom and Dad." Dipper explained, sullenly.

The thought of what was going on was starting to dawn on Stan. He wasn't particularly good at picking up signals from anyone, but even he was starting to notice the problem. He could see it all: Mabel not getting up early to cheerily wake up everyone, Dipper looking terrified to explain why, and the thought of Mabel being upset about having a dream about her pig.

"Hang on, you don't mean…" Stan worried, now actually on the edge of his seat.

"Yeah. When she brought him home, they seemed fine with it at first. But as soon as we went to bed that night, I could hear them talking downstairs. They kept saying stuff about how it would be too much to care for, and how she'd forget about him anyway. So the next day, they sat down with Mabel. They explained why she couldn't keep Waddles, but she was heartbroken." Dipper said, his face seeming to steady and become less saddened.

"So, what? They gave away the pig?" Ford asked, seeming at ease that the outcome probably wasn't too bad.

"That was the original plan. But after Mom and Dad said that she couldn't keep him, she went ballistic. She grabbed him and ran out the door as fast as she could. But then, she ran on to the road and nearly got hit by a car. He beeped, and swerved out of the way. So Mabel was fine. But when the car beeped, it scared Waddles… and he ran into the one place where he shouldn't have." Dipper finished, remembering the look on Mabel's face.

And it finally clicked in Stan's head. He had seen his niece upset before, but he dreaded the thought of seeing her after the events Dipper described. The only thoughts that he could form in his mind, were the thoughts of how he was going to help out with this one. It wasn't just like he could go out, steal a puppy and make it all better. This was Mabel, and no amount of replacements could have the same effect Waddles did.

"Oh. So he's…" Stan trailed, not wanting to hear the answer.

Dipper said nothing, he merely looked up and nodded.

Ford seemed unmoved by the story Dipper had told. In his time of being in between dimensions, he had lost his sense of sympathy for such things. His intelligence made think of logical solutions, rather than emotional ones. Thoughts such as 'Why couldn't she just get over it?' and 'What do you expect? She ran into the open road, it was bound to happen.' Brewed and stewed around his mind while the two others in the kitchen were crestfallen while hearing and remembering the horrible events.

"Well, there's nothing _we_ can do about it. I say we just let it go, and have her deal with this herself." Ford said, getting up from the table to pour another cup of coffee from the counter.

"Watch it, Ford!" Stan shouted, getting up and pointing a finger at his brother. "If it weren't for her, you'd still be in that God-forsaken dimen-"

"No, Grunkle Stan, he's right." Dipper intervened, placing his hand on Stan's arm, pushing it slowly towards the table. "The more that you try to make her feel better, the more upset she gets."

As Dipper finished his sentence, the door upstairs could be heard opening and closing, and footsteps could be heard making their way down the stairs. The three in the kitchen knew it was Mabel, but the sound wasn't normal for her. Instead of a loud, thundering crash coming down the stairs, it was a very light, very quiet creaking as the girl proceeded onto the main floor.

"Ok, here she comes." Dipper whispered. "Remember, don't mention anything, and act natural."

The creaking from the stairs stopped, and the sound of footsteps on the floor could be heard instead. From out of the hallway leading upstairs, Mabel stood in the kitchen's doorway. But the Mabel from earlier was completely gone. Her eyes were no longer puffy, she wasn't slouched over, and oddly enough, she wore the same smile that she wore every day. Even though she seemed alright, Dipper knew something was up.

"Good morning, family!" Mabel said, making her way to the fridge and grabbing the container of orange juice from within.

"Uh…mornin', pumpkin." Stan greeted, confused by his niece's joyous attitude.

"So how'd you two sleep?" Mabel asked, putting the orange juice down and grabbing a glass off of the counter.

"It was alright. I may have slept on a broken cot last night, but anything was better than that sleeping bag on the boat." Ford explained.

Dipper looked over to Stan and raised his eyebrow, motioning to him to continue the conversation, and most of all, act like nothing is wrong.

"Well, uh… Yeah, I slept ok. I had this weird dream though." Stan said, not noticing Dipper's facial expression that obviously read 'Stop talking'.

"What was it about?" Mabel asked, sitting down with a full glass of orange juice.

Dipper seemed entirely confused. Ever since the first few time this had happened, Mabel had been unable to hide it. She tried a few times, but would crack at the first mention of either Waddles, dreams, or cars. But it was entirely the opposite. She was fine.

"I don't remember all of it, but I can remember something about the number 9, and something else about a table. But other than that, no dice." Stan explained, now just noticing Dipper's signal.

"Huh. That is weird. I mean really, a table, and a number? You so cray-cray Grunkle Stan!" Mabel exclaimed, gulping down the orange beverage.

"So what did you plan for today? Any mysteries or something?" Ford asked through the newspaper he held to his face.

"Nah, I was gonna ask Soos if he needed anything from town." Mabel shrugged.

"Is that really how you want to spend your first actual day of summer?" Stan asked, hinting that she should be doing something fun.

"Well, today I wanted to have a lazy day. Especially after that pile of jerk from yesterday." Mabel said, moving over to the doorway.

"Ok then…uh…have fun." Stan waved to Mabel, who was now out of the kitchen, and proceeding up the stairs.

As Mabel made her way back upstairs, she left the three in the kitchen more confused than ever. Stan sat back down in his chair, and stared blankly at Dipper and Ford. Wondering what had just happened.

"I thought you said she was so sad, that she'd give a soap opera a run for its money." Stan said, pointing a finger at Dipper.

"Trust me, she was! I don't know what happened." Dipper explained, trying to find reason for this odd behavior.

Ford, being the one with the most intelligence in the room, put down his newspaper, and decided he wanted to explain his theory on Mabel. With an almost annoyed facial expression, he opened his mouth to speak.

"Did it ever occur to you that she didn't want me or Stan to see her like the way you described?"

This never occurred to Dipper. He thought that Mabel was the same around everyone. When this dream would happen, she would open up to Dipper, be mad at their parents, and unpleasant to everyone else. But then it seemed quite possible that she wanted Stan and Ford to not know. He knew that Mabel cared too much for her Great Uncles, and the possibility of pretending everything was ok to make them feel better, wasn't too farfetched.

"Now that you mention it, I guess it makes sense that she wouldn't want the two of you to see her like that." Dipper said, scratching his chin.

"But that doesn't make any sense! I've lost the pig before, and heck, the little pain almost got eaten by a dinosaur, and she wasn't breaking down." Stan said loudly.

"I guess, but she still thought he was alive. And now she knows that he's dead, and she still blames herself for letting it happen." Dipper reasoned.

Stan was upset with the thought of Mabel withholding information from him. "Look, as much as I want Mabel to be alright, we should drop it now, and figure something out next time around." Stan said, letting out a sigh after he was done.

"It's probably for the best. I mean, we were going to go find that Bill statue, but if she doesn't want to go, I'll go by myself." Dipper sighed, upset that his sister wouldn't be joining him.

But upon Dipper finishing his sentence, Stan and Ford began to wear the same face of Dread that he had when he originally walked into the kitchen. The two looked back at each other, deciding which one of them would have to explain the problem with Dipper's plan.

"Uh, Dipper…We overheard you and Mabel last night, and we knew that you'd go find the statue." Ford said, staring at the floor just as Dipper was.

"Don't worry, I made some precautions. I have my EMF detector, in case there's any demonic readings, I have some anointed water if any of them show up, and I even have-" Stan looked at Dipper with a look of sadness. Not the type of sadness that Mabel was apparently feeling, but the type that seemed like he was about to break some bad news.

"We can't let you go look for the statue." Stan said bluntly.

Dipper was flabbergasted by the statement Stan had said. "B-but I have everything ready! And I'll be really careful, like, I won't even think of touching it." Dipper explained, trying his best to convince his Great Uncle.

"Dipper, We can't let you go find it because…well… It's not there." Ford said, his words piercing Dipper.

"What do you mean it's gone?" Dipper asked.

Stan decided to swap in for his brother, to help lighten the load. "Look, kid, we saw the statue when we got back, but the morning you guys showed up, it was gone." Stan said.

"So, hang on. The statue just disappeared?" Dipper asked once more, still confused as to the whereabouts of the Bill statue.

"Not necessarily. It may be possible that the statue vanished entirely, but there's one explanation that seems more plausible." Ford said, holding one arm behind his back, and the other in just above his face, pointing upwards.

"Well, what is it?" Dipper asked, while Stan got up from his chair and made his way to the fridge.

Stan opened the fridge door, and pulled out a can of Pitt, opening it. "We think someone moved it." Stan said, taking a sip from the aluminum can.

"But we don't know who moved it. All we know, is that it had to be a large group of people. With that thing embedded into the ground, there's no way one person could have done it. On top of that, the stone that the statue is made of is one of the densest materials on earth, roughly 10 times heavier than osmium." Ford explained.

"So in actual English, it's really heavy, and you'd need a crane to lift it." Stan said, sitting back down at the table and now halfway through his soda.

"Oh come on! Now I want to go find it even more!" Dipper said.

"Not happening. If a pile of discount meat is enough to make me worry, than a giant statue of a killer demon means definitely no." Stan said, crossing his arms.

"But I'll be really car-"

"I said NO!" Stan shouted, standing back up from his chair again.

Dipper let out a long sigh, accompanied with a frown. "Ok, fine."

"Now that's better." Stan said, making his way to the front room. "Alright, the Shack's opening soon, and I'm going to see if Soos learned how to scam from me." And like that, he was gone.

Dipper was too many levels of upset to count. At first he had to endure the dilemma with his sister, he had to learn that the Bill statue was nowhere to be seen, and to top it all off, he wasn't even allowed to go find it. There were probably other problems in his mind, but these were the ones that would bound against the walls of his mind. He wasn't sad, or angry, he was just upset. He couldn't hang out with his sister, and the one thing that could have been a cool mystery to explore was a thought to be erased from his brain. Looking at the wooden floor, Dipper walked towards the doorway, presumably to join Stan since it was the only thing available. As he approached, and entered the doorway, a quiet voice could be heard from behind him.

"Dipper, come here." Ford said, motioning his hand to Dipper.

"Yeah?" Dipper asked, while still approaching his Great Uncle.

Ford took in a deep breath, and let out a long sigh. "Look, I know that you want to go find that Bill statue, but it could be dangerous, and if anything were to happen to you because of it, I wouldn't be able to live with myself." Ford explained.

"I know. I just really wanted to go find the statue. I mean, it's the dead body of Bill Cipher, of course I want to go look for it." Dipper said, still looking at the floor.

For took a knee before his nephew, and let out a soft chuckle. "You know, you remind me of a younger me. When I was a kid, my parents told me that one of these days, the mysteries were going to kill me." Ford said, with a softhearted smile.

Dipper said nothing, all while still avoiding eye contact.

"And seeing as how much like me you are, I know that someone telling you 'no' isn't going to stop you." Ford said, putting a hand on Dipper's shoulder.

"Wait, what?" Dipper asked, confused as to the point Ford was trying to make.

"Dipper, I know that there's nothing that me or Stan can do to stop you. You're going to run into dangerous mysteries, and get yourself killed without proper knowledge…" Ford reached into his jacket and went through his pocket, pulling out a strange object.

The item Ford pulled out was no doubt a book. It had a black cover, and back, with a gold trimming around the sides and corners of it. And in the middle of the cover, there was a large golden circle that rested in the middle, and within it, a golden six fingered hand could be seen.

"Which is why I'm giving you this." Ford handed the book to Dipper, who was in shock due to what he received.

Dipper was filled with an odd mixture of joy and confusion as he received the new journal. It was exactly like the old ones, but was surprisingly, it was lighter, thinner, and less thrown together.

"I thought the journals were destroyed. So what's this?" Dipper asked, trying his best to hold back excitement.

"When Stan and I got onto the boat, I decided to rewrite all of my journals. But after carrying the three around, and a fourth one that was being written during my explorations," Ford got back up, continuing to explain. "It was impossible to carry them around without losing them. So I decided to revise all of them, and make them into one lightweight and easy to access place. So I made the final journal. This Dipper, Is the Compendium." Ford finished, looking upon Dipper's surprised expression.

Dipper was without words. After seeing the journals destroyed by Bill during Weirdmageddon, he felt as though his explorations of the paranormal and odd had to come to an end. But the spark that pushed his to journey was reignited, and a new sense of optimism washed over the mind of Dipper, one that made him long for the thrill of adventure.

"Grunkle Ford, thank you so much!" Dipper said, running towards Ford, giving him a hug.

"Yes, yes, it's quite interesting. But you need to make me a promise." Ford said, pointing a finger at Dipper.

"Anything. I don't care what it is, I'll do it." Dipper said, wearing the biggest grin on his face.

"This book isn't to make you want to find monsters or ghouls, I'm giving it to you so that when one of those monsters shows up, you know how to stay alive." Ford paused. "You need to promise me, that no matter what you find in that book, and no matter how cool it may seem, you won't go looking for trouble." Ford stared seriously at Dipper.

"Why would I go looking for trouble?" Dipper asked.

Stan sighed, as he remembered his own past. "Dipper, do you ever wonder how I ended up getting sucked into that portal?"

"I know how you got sucked into the portal. You were tricked by Bill into building it, and Grunkle Stan accidentally knocked you in." Dipper explained, remembering when he first met Ford.

"Yes, that may have been the circumstances, but it's much more complicated than that. When I first decided that I wanted to build this portal, I did the one thing I shouldn't have. I went looking for trouble. If I had just done my work without finding an easier solution, I would have stayed on earth, and Weirdmageddon would have never happened. So all I ask is that you stay safe, and keep away from anything that could get you killed." Ford was now out of advice, but it didn't matter, he knew where Dipper would be heading afterwards.

"Don't worry, Grunkle Ford. I'll be alright." Dipper made his way out of the kitchen, but before he could leave, his Great Uncle had one last thing to tell him.

"Oh, and do me a favor, and don't tell Stanley." Ford said.

"Not a word." Dipper nodded, now exiting the kitchen, and running upstairs.

The sound of Dipper sprinting up the stairs could heard all throughout the Mystery Shack. He got to the top of the stairs, tripping on the last step and face planting onto the floor above him. He would have felt embarrassed, but there was no one around to witness it, and he was much too happy be brought down by anything. He picked himself off of the floor, walking into the empty room before entering his own.

Before Dipper entered his room, he could hear the sound of quick movements, as though something was scurrying into place. He opened the door to find Mabel laying down on her bed, fully dressed, and wearing a purple sweater with a blue whale on it. In her hands, she was holding a magazine, aptly titled 'Boybands: How can you survive the fangirl swarms?'.

"Mabel, you're not going to believe this!" Dipper shouted, but quiet enough that only Mabel could hear him.

"What's up Bro-bro?" Mabel asked, putting her magazine down.

"Ok, so Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford knew that we wanted to go find the Bill statue." Dipper said, excitement still present in his voice.

"Oh yeah, I forgot that was a thing." Mabel said, obviously not sharing the excitement her brother had.

"They said that it was too dangerous, and that we couldn't go see it, and then they said that the statue was gone, and then Stan said there was no way it was happening, but then Ford gave me this!" Dipper rambled, holding the Compendium above his head.

"So that's like, what? Another journal?" Mabel asked, still uninterested.

But of course, being who he is, Dipper couldn't take a hint. "It's way better than another journal, this is the Compendium!" Dipper opened the book, going through all the pages. "It has everything from the last three journals, plus everything Grunkle Ford wrote bout during his expedition."

"Wow, that is pretty cool." Mabel said, trying to pick up her magazine without Dipper noticing.

"And best of all, there's so many entries I've never seen before!" Dipper stopped on a page. The page displayed an angry looking woman made of wood and sticks, with the word 'Branch-shee' written in large letters atop the page. "I mean, a Branch-shee? I've never seen it in Gravity Falls, but this means they're real!" Dipper made his way over to his dresser, grabbing his black vest, and a new pair of shorts.

He then went over to the nightstand, and put on his pine tree hat. Rushing to the bathroom, he changed faster than he ever could. Within a few seconds, he out, and ready to go explore. Dipper was now at the door to the bedroom, on his way to find the Bill statue, until he noticed that Mabel was still in bed.

"Come on, Mabel. Get dressed! We need to get going now, before Stan notices!" Dipper exclaimed, motioning his hand towards Mabel.

Mabel, who was still laying down on her bed, put down her magazine once more, and seemed ever so slightly annoyed. "Uh, Dipper… remember?"

Dipper was confused as to what his sister was saying. He had just received the Compendium, he was on his way to find the remains of Bill, but he was still confused as to why Mabel wouldn't be joining him. And then he remembered how the morning started.

"Oh, right…Sorry." Dipper apologized, scratching the back of his arm.

"Don't worry, it's all good." Mabel smiled, trying to reassure her brother.

"Are you alright, though? I mean, I can skip the whole Bill thing if you want to talk." Dipper offered.

Mabel snorted. "Sheesh, Dipper. It was just a dream. I'm fine, I just want a lazy day, that's all."

"Are you sure?" Dipper asked.

"I promise you, I'm totally alright." Mabel said, closing her eyes, and holding a hand to her heart.

Dipper was now convinced that there were no repercussions to finding the statue. "Alright. I'll be back later, probably in one piece." Dipper chuckled as he left the room.

"You have fun, Dipping sauce!" Mabel said loudly, as the door closed.

Mabel was now alone in the large room. The ceiling seemed infinitely farther away than it should have been, and the walls seemed to lose that wooden color that they were supposed to have. As she lay back down, putting the magazine onto the nightstand, the face she wore was no longer happy, it was now crying. From underneath her pillow, she pulled out a picture. It was slightly crumpled, but other than that, was in perfect condition. She was now sitting up holding her head low enough to see the picture past her hair. In the picture, she and Dipper could be seen, laughing and presumably having a wonderful time in the forest surrounding them. And in Mabel's arms, a pink object could be seen. But it was no object, it was the one thing Mabel could see in the entire picture.

"Waddles…" Mabel whispered, as a single teardrop fell onto the pig's face.

* * *

It had been a few hours since Dipper ran off into the woods in search of the statue. Seeing as how his Grunkle Ford didn't want him to go find it in the first place, he didn't bother to tell Dipper on where the statue was. The only thing he knew, was that it was somewhere within the vicinity of the Shack, and that it wasn't actually there. This made locating the large stone triangle that much more of a challenge. But that wouldn't stop him, nothing would. If he could take on killer gnomes, psychotic child psychics, evil wax men, giant candy monster, hordes of the undead, ghosts, insane dream demons and puberty, than finding a giant hunk of stone shouldn't be any more difficult.

But it was still a pain nonetheless.

"I've been almost everywhere within two miles of the Shack, where else could it be?" Dipper asked to himself, frustrated that his task wasn't so simple.

Dipper was just about to turn back, thinking that this whole journey was a bust, but as he turned around, he got a little push from the universe…

"Ow! Stupid roots…" Dipper grumbled, tripping over a root.

Recovering from the fall and picking himself back up, Dipper saw the one thing that made him open his eyes with wonder. Just a few feet from him, Dipper saw a very large, but wide hole in the ground. The hole was very proper and rectangular at the bottom, but as it came closer to the surface, the earth was broken, and dirt was spread all over the ground. This was no doubt where the body of Bill Cipher previously was.

"So this is where you died." Dipper said, looking around at the disturbed resting place.

There were a million and one questions that were racing around Dipper's head. Most of them were things like 'How did someone move it?' or 'Who could have wanted to take it?' But there was one question that was the most important to ask.

"Where did it go?" Dipper asked, looking down the hole.

He raised his head, attempting took around, but saw something quite peculiar around the excavated grave. A few feet to the north, there could be see a patch a grass that was very badly stamped down. Around the crushed area, other stamped out patches could be seem, leading further into the forest.

"Well, after an a few hours, that wasn't so bad." Dipper said proudly, smiling and holding his hands to his sides.

As Dipper started to walk along the path that the patched of stamped out grass had created, the sound of whispers and deep bellowing could be heard. The air to the left of Dipper grew colder, but to the right, it got warmer. The birds in the trees flew away in fear, fleeing in hopes of living another day. And on top of the odd temperature effects to either side of Dipper, an odd sensation of humidity could be felt in the air.

"Come on, we have make our move now!" A voice whispered, sounding scared and male.

"Chill out bro, we'll go in, like, a few minutes." A voice said back, this one different that the first and much calmer.

"We must stay hidden until we have a plan." A new voice was heard, this one deep and commanding.

A feminine voice could be heard sighing. "You boys, always looking to impress someone. Why can't you just let your natural FLARE do the talking?" The female voice said, sounding surprisingly seductive.

Dipper was could hear the voices as clear as day. It didn't help that he was at the robbed grave of a psychopathic nightmare monster, but the voices topped off the levels of fear that he was feeling.

"W-who there?" Dipper shouted, trying to find the source of the whispers.

"Uh…There is no one! We are merely the wind." The deep voice said, making an unsatisfying 'whoosh' sound.

"Dude, wind totally doesn't talk." The calm voice explained.

"What are you talking about, of course I can talk. You're hearing me right now!" The scared voice shouted, angry at the relaxed one.

"Nah, man. Think about it, you can talk, but not all wind can. It's crazy, right?" The relaxed voice said, no longer making any sense.

Dipper grew less afraid by the second. To be honest, he kind of wanted to start laughing at the lack of professionalism, but he felt the need to hold it back. He had no idea what these voices could do if they were angry.

"Um…You guys can come out…or something." Dipper said, looking around the glade for the sources of the voices to show themselves.

"But…we can't come out…uh…we are just the voices of…uh…" The scared voice was stumped.

"Shut it, airhead! The jig is up." The female voice snapped to the scared one.

Directly in front of Dipper, a large plume of flame emerged. After a few seconds of burning in random directions, the plume slowly formed into a more human shape. It had long slender legs, with somewhat wide hips. The rest of the body continued to develop up to the head, where long blazing hair could be seen. The last feature that was formed was the face, or lack thereof. Where the face should have been, there was only more flame.

Behind Dipper, the earth rumbles as another being rose up from the ground. Much different to the first, the being was a bulky, broad shouldered construct made entirely from stone. His large cube shaped head was hunched on top of his shoulders. To the left and right of Dipper, two other figures materialized. To the left, it was a tornado, no real human features, except for 2 arms coming out of the side and a set of blue glowing eyes, which seemed on edge. To the right, a stream of water flowed towards him, and formed into a large floating pile which seemed like a skinny man, and the top of his head looked like a Rastafarian hat.

"Hello, child." The rock monster said. The rest of the elemental being chiming in with various 'Hello-s' and 'What's up-s'.

"Uh…Hey." Dipper waved, reaching in his vest for the Compendium.

"HIHOWAREYOUDOINGWE'RENEWHEREANDWEREALLYTHINKTHATWECOULDGETALON-"The wind monster was punched in the face by the flaming monster.

"Remember what I said." The fire monster said to the tornado, who was holding his face in pain.

"Right. Sorry." The wind monster apologized.

Dipper went through all of the pages as quickly as he could, luckily for him, the entire book was in alphabetic order. He stopped after a few pages in the 'E' section, and stopped on the word 'ELEMENTAL'.

' _Elementals are biological beings who reside close to their own elements. For example, a fire elemental would live near a volcano to retain its heat. Four different types of elemental are known so far: Fire, Earth, Water and Wind. The purpose of the elementals are to keep the various energies of the world under wraps, acting as a sort of reservoir. Most tend to be neutral, not caring about mortal life. Should anyone encounter a violent elemental, destroy it with its opposite element_.

 _Earth=Water_

 _Water=Air_

 _Air=Fire_

 _Fire=Earth_.'

Even though the pages had the solution within, there were too many discrepancies that made Dipper question the species of the constructs before him.

"So, do you guys have names?" Dipper asked, still looking through the book for answers.

The rock monster stepped in front of the others, standing only a few feet away from Dipper. "Of course. I am Bricktor. The windy fellow is Gustave. The liquid gentleman is Flow. And the burning lady is Ember. Together, we are the Wandering Golems." Bricktor said, holding his arms out to either side.

"The Wandering Golems? Is that really the best name you could come up with?" Ember asked, putting a hand on Bricktor's shoulder.

"And why is my name Gustave? How come they get cool names like Flow and Ember and I'm stuck with a stupid pun on a Mexican name?" Gustave asked.

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm alright." Flow said, leaning against a tree, with both hands behind his head.

"You know, you may be made of water, but I can still make you sizzle if you don't stop talking." Ember glared at Flow, intimidating, yet seductively.

Dipper checked the Compendium again, this time, stopping at the 'G' section, and finding an entry on entitled 'GOLEMS'.

 _'Golems are constructs created by other beings. They never occur naturally, are commonly made of a cheap material, but can also be made of higher quality substances. Elemental golems aren't unheard of, but the requirements to make them would need a very powerful being, such as a lich, necromancer or wizard. Most golems are unstoppable, not resting until their task is complete. Once their job is finished, they either self-destruct, or wander until they find a new task. It is not advisable to engage a golem, no matter the size or material.'_

The golems continued to argue as Dipper finished reading the journal entry. Surrounded by the four bickering constructs, Dipper saw an opening between Bricktor and Ember, leading further into the forest, and presumably to the location of the Bill statue. As he made his way in between the rock and fire golems, he caught off guard by a wall of fire that stopped him from continuing.

"Leaving so soon? But we just met." Ember said, dragging one of her hands atop the blazing wall she had summoned.

"Yeah, I thought we could, like, hang out or something." Flow added.

"Shh! He doesn't know that yet!" Gustave whispered, angry at the water golem.

"No, no. We should tell him." Bricktor said, turning towards Dipper.

The four golems sat on the ground, watching Dipper in the middle of them. Opening his dry, cracked stone mouth, Bricktor went on with his explanation.

"Child, do you know what we are?" Bricktor asked, resting his elbows on his knees.

"Of course he knows what we are! Not even two minutes ago, you called us travelling golems or something." Gustave shouted.

"Uh...yes. But I brought it up in case he was not paying attention." Bricktor mentioned, shifting his eyes back and forth.

Dipper was getting a little fed up with the golems. As cool as it was seeing these elemental creatures wanting to talk to him, he had much more important matters at hand. As minutes went by, he could almost sense time being wasted by the four giants around him.

"Ok, look." Dipper looked at Bricktor. "You guys seem nice and everything, but I really need to get going, so if you'll excuse me…" Dipper walked towards the gap next to Bricktor, wanting more than anything to find the Bill statue.

Bricktor didn't seem angry, he seemed hurt by Dipper's statement. He was just about to explain something to him, but was ignored due to some 'More important things'. He lifted up his massive stony arm, grabbing Dipper in his claw like hand and putting him back in the center, in the middle of the four golems.

"Hey! What gives?" Dipper asked, raising his fists in anger.

The water golem leaned his head forward to get a better look at Dipper. "Sorry man, but we, like, need you here."

"Why do you need me here? I'm just a teenager, what do you want from me?" Dipper asked loudly, still angry.

"Child, we were built to accomplish a task. The task was completed quickly after we were created. It seemed odd that we would be built with such care and quality and for such a simple objective. But our master made us permanent beings, and since our completion of the task, we must now wander the world, with no direction, or orders. We are empty." Bricktor explained, wearing a sullen expression.

"So how do I fit in to all of this?" Dipper asked.

Flow decided to add in, and finish Bricktor's explanation. "Pretty much, we're crazy bored out of our minds, and we need someone to hang out with. You know, someone to chill out with on weekends or something."

"No, we're not looking for just someone to hang out with, we're looking for a master to lead us, and give us meaning." Gustave said, standing up from his previously seated position.

"So, wait? You want me to be your master? But I'm just some guy walking through the wood." Dipper said.

"Perhaps. But due to our abandonment, we are growing more and more desperate. And seeing as how you arrived, we've chosen you to lead us." Bricktor explained, holding a hand out to Dipper. "So may we call you master?"

To anyone else, this would have been the coolest thing in the world. They were nigh-unkillable, walking engines of elemental energy who would blindly accept any order without hesitation. But to Dipper, this was probably the worst offer he could receive. And that's saying a lot after making a deal with Bill Cipher. There were a large number of reasons why he couldn't lead them, some bigger than others. Problems would arise, such as the living arrangements back in California, the possibility of the golems following him everywhere, and the chance that they would destroy an entire town if he so much as got a dirty look from someone on the street. But worst of all, if he brought back the golems to the Mystery Shack, Stan would tear him in two. After freaking out thoroughly, he'd ask where Dipper found them, and then one of them would probably say near the site of the Bill statue, and after that, anything could happen. And Dipper didn't want to risk ruining his whole summer.

Bu then it occurred to Dipper that maybe, there was a way out of this dilemma. And he knew exactly what it would be.

Dipper backed up, far enough that he could see all of the golems in front of them. He waved to them, getting their attention. "Did you guys ever think that you guys don't even need a master?"

"What do you mean?" Bricktor asked, with an offended expression on his face.

"I mean, think about it. You guys were created by some jerk who needed you for one thing and then abandoned you the second it was done." Dipper explained.

"Well, yeah. That's kind of how golems work, dude." Flow added.

"Ok, but why don't you guys go out and do what you guys want? Do something without some slime-ball telling you what to do?" Dipper asked, crossing his arms.

The four giant constructs were dumbfounded by the boy's remark. They all shrugged and put it to the back of their minds, with the exception of Bricktor, who was fully thinking about the possibility of independence.

After a minute of thinking, Bricktor stumbled upon an answer. "My boy, we are golems. Without guidance, we cannot function, we can't just do what we want simply because we lack a master."

"Alright, fine. Let's say hypothetically, I become your master. If I tell all of you to act on your own, would you do it?" Dipper asked, knowing that he was confusing the beings in front of him.

"Um…Well, if we…huh. I guess we would." Bricktor explained, still confused by the paradox the boy had given them.

"And now you want me to be your master? You guys met me like, a half hour ago. None of you even know my name." Dipper said, glaring at the four in front of him.

"Uh…We know your name, what are you talking about?" Gustave exclaimed, holding his arms to his sides and closing his eyes.

"Oh, okay. What's my name?" Dipper asked, wearing a cocky smile.

Gustave's eyes shot open as he was put on the spot. "It's…uh…Bobby."

"It's Dipper." He said.

"Damn it! I was so close!" Gustave shouted.

"But do you see where I'm coming from? I can't be you're master because you guys don't need one." Dipper explained, holding his arms forward.

"Well, then what should we do?" Ember asked.

"What are your dreams?" Dipper questioned.

"My chil- I mean, Dipper, we are golems. We don't have any dreams." Bricktor explained.

"Sure you do, everyone has dreams. For example, my dream is to uncover every mystery in Gravity Falls. So, if I asked you guys right now what you wanted the most, what would it be?" The golems fell silent as Dipper asked them the question.

While the other were still silent, Gustave stepped forward. "I…I want to be an actor." He explained. "I know that when they make movies, they use sound effects to make wind, but if I went to Hollywood, I could put those stupid computers out of their jobs."

"I want to be a firefighter. As much as love the flames that make me, the ones that get out of control make me seem like some sort of monster. So if I put out the bad flames, maybe people would like me better." Ember said, her flames now seeming much calmer than normal.

"I wouldn't mind going down to the amazon. There's so much rain and water there, that I'd totally feel at home, man." Flow said, slouching down onto an impossibly more relaxed stance.

Bricktor remained silent, until Dipper asked him the same question.

"And Bricktor, how about you? What do you want?" Dipper asked, pointing to the large stone bound construct.

Bricktor let out a long sigh. "I want to learn to cook. Whenever someone looks at rock monster like me, they're bound to run away screaming. But maybe, just maybe if I could give them something, no one would run away from me." He explained, looking straight at Dipper.

"Do you guys see it now? You can't let someone tell you what to do all the time. If you did, you'd never get the chance to be a cook, or an actor. You just have to be independent." Dipper said, looking at the four.

Bricktor's eyes began to well up, as a single tear fell from his left eye. "Dipper, you are correct. We mustn't find a master to claim and neglect us. All we need is our goals, and then we shall be complete. Thank you."

"I'm glad I could help." Dipper said, now thinking that he could finally leave.

The four golems looked to Dipper, seeming satisfied with their new revelation. They all walked over, ready to say their goodbyes.

"Does this mean we can't hang out?" Flow asked.

"No dice. But we'll see him again, don't worry." Ember said, putting a hand on flow's shoulder.

"I'll catch you later…uh…dude? Is that how you say it?" Gustave asked, perplexed by the concept of cool.

Bricktor walked past the others, now kneeling before Dipper. "We'll meet again soon. And when we do, I should hope that we meet as friends."

"I'd like that." Dipper smiled.

The four golems composed themselves, and starting to walk off towards the sun, and into the horizon. Dipper started to wave, until a question formed in his head. These golems were just waiting for him next to the dug up grave of a madman, and suddenly asked for him to be their master? It didn't make any sense. What made less sense is why they would be near the Bill statue in the first place. He knew something was up. As the golems grew further away from Dipper, he decided that he had one final question for them.

"Guys, wait up!" Dipper shouted, running towards the golems.

All four of them turned around, wondering why Dipper would be following them after explain independence. Bricktor walked towards Dipper. "What is it?"

"I forgot to ask you guys a question." Dipper leaned forwards, holding his stomach and breathing heavily.

"Anything you need answered, we got you, bro." Flow added.

Dipper stood upright, still out of breath, looking directly at the four. "What was your original task?" Dipper asked.

"Oh, that's easy. You see that hole over there?" Flow pointed to where the Bill statue used to be. "Yeah, our master wanted us to move a statue that was over there."

Dipper's eyes shot open with confusion. "Hang on, you guys moved the statue?" Dipper asked, pointing to the constructs.

"Yes, it was our task. Our master wished us to place it somewhere else within the region, and claim it when it was acceptable for him." Bricktor explained.

"You guys don't know how long I've been looking for that statue!" Dipper said, rubbing his eyes in relief.

"Seeing as how you've done us a great favor today, I don't see why we couldn't bring you to it." Bricktor offered, looking at the trail of stamped grass.

"But won't your master get angry with that?" Dipper asked.

"Look, this guy built us to move something and then left us for dead. At this point, he can die in a fire." Ember said angrily, holding a hand on her hip.

"Honestly, that would be awesome." Dipper said.

Bricktor bend over, leaning far enough for anyone to climb onto his back. "Get on, we'll take you there."

Dipper climbed onto the earth creature's back, grabbing onto various tufts of moss and vines. Dipper gave the signal that he was comfortable and ready to go. And like that, they ran towards the path they created, bringing Dipper to his destination.

* * *

The four golems had been running for the wood for roughly a half hour. The forest seemed much bigger now that Dipper was atop a monstrous creature. They hopped over logs, dashed through rivers and even knocked over a few trees in hopes of bringing Dipper to the statue of Bill Cipher. After felling the wind in his hair and under his hat for a while, the wind began to slow down, and eventually stop. They were here.

It was a building Dipper had seen before. He had not seen it in his everyday life, but he had still seen it prior to the present. The golems stopped in a clearing in the wood, about twenty feet away from a small, abandoned building in the middle of nowhere. It was a small white and blue chapel completely rotted by time. The paint was falling off of the walls, and the roof was entirely caved in. To make Dipper's time here more memorable, this was the location he rescued his sister's pig from a bloodthirsty pterodactyl.

"He wanted it here?" Dipper asked, disembarking from the back of Bricktor.

"Yeah. His words were 'Keep it out of the public eye, lay it upon the grave before time died, pry it out from broken earth, and bring to the broken church.'. Then he gave us directions that lead here." Ember explained, pointing to the destroyed holy building.

"I hope this was what you desired." Bricktor said.

"Trust me, you guys just helped me out more than you can imagine." Dipper affirmed, wearing a smile.

"Then I wish you luck, Dipper… What was your last name?" Bricktor asked, scratching his chin.

"Pines. Dipper Pines." Dipper said.

"Ah, yes. Farewell, Dipper Pines." Bricktor nodded.

As Bricktor gave his farewells, the golems walked away from the church, waving to Dipper as they went off to fulfill their dreams.

"Well, that was nice." Dipper said to himself, looking over to the church.

The church was in an absolutely decrepit state. All windows in the front were shattered or missing the door acted less as a door, and more like a wall of fungus filled mush, and the structure seemed that it could be toppled by the simplest of breezes. It was good to see that not everything in Gravity Falls changed after Weirdmageddon. So with nothing that could possibly go wrong with an old abandoned building, Dipped pushed through the mush-door, and proceeded into the building.

The interior was actually worse that the exterior. Out of the rows of pews that lined the entirety of the floor, only one row stood, the other completely turned to moss. The open ceiling let in an unnatural amount sunlight into the room, illuminating the hole in the floor, that lead to the also abandoned mines of Gravity Falls.

"So where did they put the statue?" Dipper asked to himself, looking about the wrecked chapel

As Dipper walked around the church, trying to find any sort of a clue, he went up to the altar, hoping that it could be in the back. But behind there was nothing. Only cobwebs and boxes of bibles. Although something caught his attention upon looking in the back. Dipper had found a door, one he swore wasn't there when he was last down by the church. It was a room sealed off by an oddly untouched wooden door.

Dipper opened the door, only to find a room lit up by eight, surprisingly ignited candles, all in a circle. The walls were covered from top to bottom with unreadable writing, containing multiple triangles, squares, stars and other unnatural looking shapes. The wall were unlike the ones in the rest of the building, as they were seemingly brand new, and untouched by the numerous amounts of rot and decay that had plagued the wood. But to Dipper, there was only one thing that made him feel scared. In the middle of the circle of candles, there was a long break in the wood, completely caved in, as though an item of immense weight had been left there.

Dipper pulled out the Compendium, in hopes of finding a way to read the writing scrawled all over the wall. While flipping through the pages, he stopped on the page marked 'CODES AND CIPHERS". He looked through all possible types of codes that could have corresponded with the ones on the walls. The dismissed all the entries on the page, with all of them seeming useless in his efforts.

With the exception of the final code.

The last entry on the page matched the same markings and symbols that lay before Dipper, with the name of the code being called 'Grim Speech'.

'Grim Speech is an odd code that I've encountered during my travels. While I had found the markings of Grim Speech on several ancient landmarks, I have also seen it on much more recent objects, suggesting that the Speech is still used by modern people. While difficult to crack, it can be done. Although appearing as a code, the age mixed with the usage suggests that it is an actual language. Other than a few readings I have found, there is not much else known about it.'

As Dipper read the journal entry, he found the cracked code at the bottom of the page and began to translate the symbols on the walls, and after an hour of writing down the results on an empty page at the back of the Compendium, he had solved the codes.

WITH HATEFuL Eyes

And OPEN EArS

All SHALL CoME

TO KnOW TRUE FEAr

YOuR FAITh IS DEAD

BUt DO NOT WEEP

BELiEVE IN HIM

AND YoU SHALL REAp

BREaK ALL Ties

BeTRAY ALL BOnDS

ANd ALL PAiN AND SUFfERING

SHALL BE GoNE

SO COLoR THE SKy BlaCk

And PAiNT THE CLoUDS RED

BRaCE YOURSeLF

For THE DAY OF DrEAD

For WHeN THE WORlD ENDS

AND THE Planet DIeS

HIS FORM IS cOMpLETE

AND HE SHALL RISE

The words Dipper had written down had left him more afraid than could have thought possible. Whoever wanted to take the Bill statue obviously didn't want it to spice up his living room. Whoever took the statue was without a doubt just as crazy as Bill Cipher. And worst of all, he still had no clue where the statue went. All he knows is that it used to be at the church, but that seems irrelevant at this point.

Dipper ran out of the building, running all the way back to the Mystery Shack. He knew that he could tell no one of what he saw today. Stan and Ford would end up locking him up in his room, Soos would end up telling Stan, and he doubted that Mabel wanted to hear about what she missed out on. The only thing Dipper knew, was that he had to keep his findings a secret. Even if the text on the wall meant bad news, until he could find the right time to tell anyone, he had to put it to rest, at least for a little while.

* * *

(You know, my mom always told me that if I listened to too much Slayer, that there'd be satanic symbols all over my wall, and lo and behold, she was right! But yeah, yay for part 2! A bit of a slow chapter, but we all need a chapter of explanation, it makes the other seem much more complete. I'm glad to see some of you liked the last chapter, and had the balls to tell me I messed up! P.S. I realize Dipper and Wendy switched hats at the end of the show, but I made a bit of a goof, so we're just going to roll with it. To all of you hoping to see Waddles once more in the town of Gravity Falls, that hope dies NOW!

But don't worry, I have plans for this, so sit tight.

And as always, leave a review, telling me I'm mediocre, and leave a suggestion telling me what you want to see. So with this, I'll see you guys next chapter. Now, I have one final thing to say, one final thing that can explain the next chapter…

Clowns… Clowns.

Have a nice night!)

 **LQ WKH LPPRUWDI ZRUGV RI ZLOOLDP VKDNHVSHDUH: "EDOOV, WKH SLJ'V GHDG"**

* * *

If anyone is reading this, I've added this message a week after posting this chapter.

Ok, so I know that I've just made a schedule, and that the point of a schedule is to follow it and do what is written on it, but, exams have just dropped themselves on my front door until the end of June.

I know, it sucks.

But because of the BS exams, I won't be able to follow this schedule for a little while. That doesn't mean that there won't be anything up for a month, but it just means that the next few chapters are going to be coming out at seemingly random times, possibly 2 weeks apart.

So, what I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry. Really, I am. But unfortunately, life finds a way to punch me in the face with these so called "Real world responsibilities".

See you guys in a while!


	4. Chapter 3:Live Screaming,Die Laughing(1)

Chapter 3: Live Screaming, Die Laughing (Part 1)

(Greetings once again, primate descendants.

THE BREAK IS TEMPORATILY OVER UNTIL THE END OF THIS CHAPTER! HUZZAH!

Thank god. I really missed you guys :)

I welcome you once more to town of Gravity Falls, but realistically, into the mind of me. Where the show never ends and my continuous sadness propels the creation of this story.

I love it, I know!

Jokes aside, welcome to the next chapter of Back to the Falls. Before you read any further, I want to give out the most sincere apology that I can. I've had exams, and with a few other stressful times, it's made it quite difficult to do, well, anything. So, I'm sorry about the wait, and I thank you guys for your patience. I'm really happy that you guys are enjoying my writing, and to be honest, I'm happy to be doing something that people like. But like everything else in life, screw my feelings! Let's 'ave a gander, shall we?)

* * *

The television was an interesting invention. The concept has been around since the year 1846, with the idea of the taking pictures, putting them through a series of movement, and making it seem as though the images on screen were alive. It wasn't until the 1920's, when the idea quickly became a reality. Throughout the decades, the television was perfected, from the tube TV, to the plasma TV. But the best part of this machine, was the programming it could present. There were a multitude of programs, each one tickling the fancy of whoever watched it. And in the modern times of today, television programming is home to thousands upon thousands of shows, entertaining the masses around the world, and putting a staple in electronic history.

All except the town of Gravity Falls.

In the living room of the Mystery Shack, it was a lazy afternoon that nobody wanted. You had Stan sitting in his recliner, taking it back from Soos once he returned from his expedition, Ford leaning against the doorway that lead into the front room of the Mystery Shack, along with Dipper and Mabel who were laying down on the shag carpet, facing the television with expressions of sheer boredom. Since their arrival a few days ago, the Mystery Twins spent all of their time either in the Mystery Shack, or in the woods surrounding it until they were completely settled in. Meanwhile, Soos and Wendy had been working in the Shack all day, taking money from the various tourists who stumbled into the building. Unfortunately for the working crew, their shift was just as slow and boring as the rest of the day.

' _Next up on our mid-day scheduled programming marathon extravaganza, brace yourselves for the action packed feature film: Taxed up. Starring Seth Logan as a deadbeat to-be-father, paying off his taxes…TO THE MAX! Stay tuned.'_ The TV shouted, picturing a large man with a beard doing math.

"Is this really what you can call 'summer programming'?" Dipper asked, motioning his hand towards the old tube TV.

"Yeah! I mean, yesterday there was a whole Ducktective marathon and everything, but now the TV's being all stupid!" Mabel agreed.

"Kids, I think it's about time I tell you about what it's like being old." Dipper and Mabel turned to Stan. "When you get to my age, you get used to crap like this being on all the time. So while you two think the movie playing sucks, I say to myself 'Still better than Columbian prison." Stan explained, leaning back in his chair.

"I still don't understand. If there's nothing on TV, why don't you all just go outside instead of complaining?" Ford asked to everyone in the living room

"Grunkle Ford, let me ask you a question." Mabel turned towards Ford. "Do you think that whatever's on right now is a waste of time?"

"Of course I do. I mean the movie up next sounds bad, but that 'Ducktective' show you made me watch last night was unbearable!" Ford said, crossing his arms.

"Ok, fair enough. But are you going to get up from the doorway, and stop watching TV?" Mabel questioned, one eyebrow raised.

"Uh…well…no…not really…" Ford replied, looking at the floor, feeling defeated. Mabel turned back to the TV, smiling, and continuously watched the terrible programming.

' _And now, a word from our sponsor…'_ The television went black for a moment, only to come back on, revealing numerous people with painted faces and large red noses, all dressed in bright colors, dancing about in a large velvet tent.

 _'_ _Hello Gravity Falls! Are you bored right now? Is today's scheduled programming leaving you wishing for fun? Well, come on down to the Cirque du Oh, Yay! It's a circus like you've never seen! Acrobats, dangerous animals, cheap popcorn at extortionate prices and more, we have it all! And for our opening day only, all admission is free! Free! FREE! So come on down!_

 _Cirque du Oh, Yay, a circus so great, you'll never stop laughing!'_ The voice over was so convincing, that Dipper, Stan and Ford shared a look to one another. They were utterly enthralled by the showmanship of the voice on TV, leaving them with the idea of heading down to this 'Cirque du Oh, Yay!'

But on the other hand, there was Mabel, whose smile disappeared entirely, letting out a scream at the top of her lungs, and hiding behind Stan's recliner the second that the advert sprung up on the screen. Upon hearing a terrified scream coming from the living room, Soos and Wendy came over, to find the source of the commotion. When they got into the living room, they were met with the sight of Mabel freaking out behind a brown recliner, and everyone else staring right at her.

"Yeesh! What's got you all worked up, kid?" Stan asked, looking under his arm and behind his chair.

"Oh, don't worry about her. Mabel just has a fear of clowns. She's hated them ever since she watched that Stephen Queen movie, _That._ " Dipper explained.

"Ok, whoa there!" Mabel poked her head out from behind the recliner. "I'm not scared of clowns. I'm just scared of their makeup, their hair, the way they move around and a few other things. But other than that, HOW ARE YOU GUYS FINE WITH THOSE JERK FACES?! THEY'RE EVIL, AND THEY WANT TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!" Mabel shouted, flailing her arms into the air.

Wendy walked over to the chair, resting an arm on the back of it. "Dude, I used to be afraid of clowns. But I found out that they were just people, and then they weren't so bad."

"Wendy! That's how they get you, they make you think that they're people, and then they eat your face!" Mabel explained, still mortified by the thought of clowns.

"Mabel, come on. She's right. They're not monsters, they're just carneys who want to steal your money." Dipper said.

"NO!" Mabel shouted, hiding her head back behind the recliner and crossing her arms.

"It's alright, Hambone. My neighbor used to be a clown." Soos added, stepping further into the living room.

"Really?" Dipper asked.

"Yeah, dude. He was crazy-funny. Although, he wasn't as funny after he went to jail…" Soos trailed, trying to remember why his neighbor got arrested.

"I still don't like them, they're evil!" Mabel yelled, sinking further and further behind the couch.

Stan sat up in his chair, looking at the various other people in the room. "Look, we can argue about carneys later, but right now, I'm sorta in the middle of something…" Stan shifted his gaze to the television, signaling to everyone around him to shut up and watch TV.

Back on the TV, the commercials were replaced with a white sign covering the entirety of the screen, revealing the message 'TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES'

' _Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize. Our feature film is now cancelled due to unforeseen lightning striking the building, destroying our copy, along with most of our other selections from our lineup…."_ The TV said.

"Hang on, lightning? But it's completely sunny outside…" Dipper puzzled, scratching the back of his head.

 _"_ _And seeing as how we're a TV station, the show must go on! For the next 18 hours, prepare for the suspense filled, blockbusting marathon of…"_ The TV's display went back on, revealing a picture of a comedian on a stage, holding a microphone. _"…The comedic stylings of Dane Chef! Stay tuned."_

Everyone turned to Stan, who wore nothing but a stale, annoyed expression. "Ok, new idea. We throw the TV out the window, and then we pack up the car and head down to the circus thing downtown."

"I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea to close up for a little bit. I mean, that last guy was totally just asking for directions." Soos chuckled.

"And Stanley, we haven't been to a circus since we were still living back in Jersey." Ford smiled, putting a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"If Soos is taking a day off, count me in." Wendy said.

"Me too. There's no way I'm watching Dane Chef for longer than I have to." Dipper explained, looking at the TV.

"So it's settled." Stan got up from his recliner, making his way to his bags in the corner of the room, pulling out his suit from within. "Wendy, go close up shop. Everyone else, get in my car! We're going to the circus!" Stan shouted with excitement, raising his arms into the air.

Mabel poked her head up once more, but instead of looking scared, she seemed to be much angrier this time around. "Yeah, ok. You guys have a good time, I'm not going anywhere."

"Do you really want to stay at the Shack by yourself instead of going to the super-cool-awesome circus?" Soos asked.

"Uh…Of course. I can…hmm…Oh! I can watch Dane Chef's standup. It's pretty…Um…funny?" Mabel said, proving she was a terrible liar.

"Mabel, sweetheart, will you go if I buy ya a snow cone?" Stan asked, still walking slowly towards the exit.

Mabel let out a long sigh. "Fine. Buuuuut, I get THREE snow cones, and I only have to stay for half an hour." she said, crossing her arms and twisting her head to the side to get a better look at Stan.

"Fine, but you're walkin' back." Stan said.

"Deal." Mabel put her hand out, only for Stan to reach forward, and shake it.

Dipper entered the room, seeming slightly annoyed. "Guys, come on! We have to go now if we want to get good parking."

"HA! I'm glad to see a little bit of me rubbed off on you, kid." Stan laughed, making his way out of the Mystery Shack, bringing Mabel along with him.

Stan, along with Dipper, Mabel and Ford piled into the red Diablo dragster. Wendy made her way to Soos' truck, which Soos was already in. Afterwards, the two vehicles drove away from the tourist trap, and made their way towards the town. All were excited, except Mabel, who was somewhat still skeptical to the idea of clowns…

* * *

The drive through downtown Gravity Falls was a welcome sight to see. While Dipper was in the backseat, he could see all of the buildings and places that made his previous summer enjoyable. To the right, a building larger than the others stood out between the copious amounts of stores and shops. In large, chiseled letters, 'Gravity Falls Museum of History' was etched into the stone slab held up by four stone pillars below it. To the left of him, the town hall stood, bearing various signs of age and decay, where he can still remember the time his Grunkle Stan ran for mayor. Down the street the arcade could be seen. And while it wasn't the most pleasant memory that it could offer, but almost getting killed by a virtual fighting champion is still a memorable time in anyone's summer.

Near the limits of the town, a large clearing was present. But instead of the tall grass swaying as usual, a massive green and purple striped circus tent could be seen, with overly bright search lights beaming into the sky, despite it being the middle of the day. All around the tent, cars were parked by the dozen, seeming as though all of Gravity Falls were there to see this so called 'Cirque du Oh, Yay!'

"Alright, we're here. Everyone out." Stan said, parking the car far away from the other vehicles in the parking lot.

Everyone got out of Stan's car, along with Soos and Wendy out of the truck, which was parked right next to Stan. Before the six of them was the biggest tent any of them had seen, and that was saying something considering Stan and Ford had to replace the roof of their boat with a tarp after it got ripped off by a giant squid. They all walked towards the structure, all while Mabel seemed quite anxious about entering.

Upon approaching the opening, it seemed as if it was a fight to get in, due to the large number of people attempting to view the act. At the ticket booth, all the way past the masses, it almost looked like a riot.

"Move it or lose it! Outta the way! Oh yeah? Well, up yours buddy!" Stan shouted, shoving his way through the numerous other townsfolk in hopes of getting to the ticket booth before a thousand or so other people.

As the six approached the booth, they were greeted by a man dressed in red and yellow, with clown makeup smeared across his face, looking much too happy with his terrible job. All while being behind a pane of glass.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen! What a lovely time for a show, am I right?" The man asked, nudging the glass before him with his elbow. "So, what can I do for you fine folks today?"

"Yeah, we need six for the show." Stan said, resting his arm on the booth.

The man turned around, and pulled up six tickets which he handed to Stan. "There you are. Now remember, those tickets are one way, just so we can keep in all the fun! So make sure you don't leave!" The man explained, jumping up and down.

Stan let out a chuckle. "I like your pitch kid, reminds me of a younger, much more painted me."

The words that left the ticket booth operator's mouth seemed to trouble Mabel. "But, I can still go, right? I mean, I don't neeeed to be there for you guys to have fun." Mabel said, pleading to be able to go home.

"I don't know, how about you stay for a little bit and see if you have fun. How's that sound?" Stan asked.

Through her teeth, Mabel sighed. "Fine."

The group parted from the ticket booth, delving deeper into the massive tent of wonder and whimsy. The interior of the tent was a marvel of design. Each pole that held up the massive structure was bronzed, allowing the various lights to shimmer off of them. Where the tall grass should have been, was instead, a silken red carpet, which was surprisingly soft to the touch. And while all around them, the townsfolk walked around, taking in the beauty of where they stood, the middle of them was where the real show was to be seen. Ahead of them, large drapes dropped down from the ceiling, separating the tent into an odd doughnut shape, allowing the performers to do their thing in the middle.

Everyone from the Mystery Shack walked forwards towards the draped off area, wearing wondered expressions on their faces. All except Mabel. As much as she was remaining calm during her time around the circus, she still felt the fear. In her mind, the clowns were only appearing to be friendly. But once her back was turned, they'd be ready to lunge out at her and tear off her face.

Thank God it was just her overactive imagination.

The six entered the stage area, where numerous benches, seats and bleachers could be seen. Above them, a massive array of lights and effects added that certain flare to the circus. On the stage itself, there was nothing. Instead, there was only fog, allowing the ambience to set in while the act prepared itself.

They sat down at the very back, all the way in the bleachers, in hopes of getting the best view possible. Mabel sat in the middle, with Dipper and Stan to her sides, along with Ford, Soos and Wendy beside them.

Down on the stage, a strange white hatted man walked into the middle of everyone's view, strutting about with a long white cane. He was oddly misplaced for some guy in the middle of a tent full of painted men. On his slim, muscular figure, he wore a white suit, adorned with a red tie, a green and purple checkered pocket square, and a pair of black as night dress shoes. To the untrained eye, he seemed like anyone else, just the big business guy who owns the circus. But there was something off about him. Maybe it was the crooked smile that seemed much too happy for someone like him. Maybe it was the limping stagger he walked with onto the stage with. Or maybe it was the massive scar going through his blind left eye, although still appearing to be looking around.

The entire crowd went silent as he appeared on stage. "Ladies and gentlemen!" He shouted, raising his hands and cane into the air. "I thank all of you for the warm welcome we've received on our opening night."

Upon hearing the words escaping from his mouth, there was something not right in the mind of Mabel. She's seen people who've dressed with a certain flare, but she's also seen people who've lumbered about, seeming injured. The fact that he was limping in a seemingly unnatural way paired with a warm, soft voice didn't sit right with her.

"Let me just say, that out of the many towns and cities that we've visited in the past few months, I think it's safe to say that we'll like this one the best." The entire crowd began to chatter to itself, enjoying the compliment to the town. "But enough with my formalities, welcome…TO CIRQUE DU OH, YAY! A circus so great, YOU'LL NEVER STOP LAUGHING!" The man shouted, along with the crowd cheering along.

The man limped off the stage, going down a set of stairs, and walking to the back, presumably to a dressing room. As the lights dimmed, the fog on the stage grew thicker, and the sounds of chatter fell silent. Once more in the middle of the stage, an orange light draped the middle, allowing a bench to be seen, and a man before it, although entirely different from the first one.

The man was crouched, hiding his face. He wore a tattered brown suit, torn white gloves, a pair of holed shoes and a worn out brown hat. He slowly stood up, revealing his white face, blue painted eyes, and shiny red nose.

He was a clown.

Mabel' heartbeat sped up, realizing what was on stage. "It's ok Mabel. He's just a guy. I mean, even if he was a scary, evil, killer…" Mabel's whispers trailed off, letting out a gulping sound. "…Face-wearing clown, he wouldn't kill me in front of a ton of people… right?"

From the right of the stage, another man walked towards the bench. He was dressed much nicer than the man in the tattered suit. He wore a buttoned up white shirt, with a black vest over it and in his right hand, and black briefcase. His white pants shimmered under the orange light, while his black shoes absorbed it. And like the man before him, his face was painted on and wearing a red nose.

He walked over to the homeless looking clown, who was now sitting on the right side of the bench. The way he walked over seemed to show off what type of character he was. He was obviously a serious business man, thinking he was too high and mighty to be walking in the same area as the homeless man.

"Exuuuuuse me…uh…sir…" The Fancy Man trailed, appearing to be disgusted by the homeless clown. "…does this happen to be the stop for the 10:45 bus?"

The Vagabond stumbled forwards, leaning his head on the man's shoulder and placing his arm around him. He seemed to be drunk. "Well, look - Hic – lookie here! I don't get many o' them visitor types 'round here! So, what 'chu want?"

"Um…Quite." The Fancy Man took in a deep breath. "I'm in quite a hurry, I merely need to know if this is the stop for the 10:45 bus."

"Why, of course this is the stop! I been here for 20 God-dang years!" The Hobo yelled, flailing his arms about.

The entire atmosphere of the circus changed. About a minute ago, the entire tent was in complete silence, but all of a sudden, laughter bellowed throughout the fabric structure.

"HA! You tell him, homeless guy!" Stan shouted, slapping his knee and joining in with the rest of the circus in laughter.

"Grunkle Stan, it really wasn't that funny." Mabel said, appearing to be the only one who wasn't laughing.

Stan said nothing back. He only continued laughing.

"Grunkle Stan?" Mabel turned to Stan, who was ignoring her completely. Normally, she would have been fine with it, seeing as how Stan ignored everyone who wasn't a paying customer. But there was something that was off-putting about her Great Uncle. He knew if something was funny, and the act before them was definitely not that.

"Dipper, there's something wrong with Sta- Dipper?" Mabel's eyes grew bigger with a sense of fear. Dipper was just like Stan. Laughing. Ignoring her.

Back on the stage, the two clowns continued their act. "Ah, yes. Thank you." The Fancy Man paused. "Well, seeing as how it's only 10:30, I might as well take a seat, to alleviate my legs."

As the Fancy Man went to sit down on the bench behind him, the Hobo sprung forwards, grabbing the Man by his shoulders, and threw him off to the side, causing him to fall over.

On cue, the laughter grew louder.

"HEY! What gives?" The Fancy Man asked, getting back up and dusting various amounts of dust off of him.

"Y'all shouldn't be shoutin'. I done saved your life!" The Hobo replied, seeming hurt by the yelling from the other man.

"What do you mean? I was just going to sit down!" The Fancy Man snapped, putting his hands and briefcase on the side of his hips.

"Listen here, sonny. That seat there may look like one o' them nice bench seats, you know, one o' them that let you sit down." The Hobo glared to the bench, appearing to get angrier just by looking at it.

"Ok…" The Fancy Man seemed to grow suspicious of the Homeless Man before him.

"But it ain't! In my 20 years of being at this here bus stop, that there seat has been nothin' but trouble! It watches me when I sleep!" The Hobo was completely hysterical at this point, making accusations of evil towards an inanimate bench.

"Riiiiight. Well, if there's any evil on this bench, I'd be more than happy to inform you." The Fancy Man, now disavowing any words that left the Hobo's mouth, made his way over to the bench, and resumed the sitting down position.

Out from nowhere, the Hobo pulled a pie from behind his back. He ran over, to behind the bench, and placed the pie on it, directly under where the Fancy Man was about to sit. Upon letting go of the pie tin, a loud squishing sound could be heard, obviously coming from underneath the Fancy gentleman who just sat in the pie. The Fancy Man's face turned sour, showing signs of regret.

The masses that filled the bleachers and seats laughed harder than they previously have. To the left of Mabel, Dipper and Stan's eyes were filled with tears, and their faces wore a pair of massive grins. She looked to the side of Dipper and Stan, and saw the exact same thing in Ford, Wendy and Soos. Their faces were turning pink, absolutely enthralled by the performance before them. Come to think of it, everyone in the tent was doing the same thing.

"Grunkle Stan, can I go now?" Mabel asked, showing slight fear in her voice.

Stan just kept laughing. He didn't even realize that he was being poked quite hard by his niece.

Mabel was now officially worried. She knew that even though Stan was a two-faced con man, he would always listen to her. But all of a sudden, he didn't even look at her. He just kept laughing.

"Ok…Look, I'm gonna go now. Don't worry about the snow cone." Mabel got up from her seat and made her way down the steps of the bleacher.

Looking back at the stage on her way out, there was something that gave her that chills about the performance. Something wasn't right with just the act, but also the people that were watching it. She knew that Wendy would only give a small, uninterested laugh, Dipper would be too busy looking at the journal, or the Compendium in this case, but the weirdest one of them all was Ford. After seeing him watch the hit comedy-action show 'Ducktective' without so much as a snicker, she knew that a few men that were all painted up wouldn't be enough to get him to laugh. She'll just have to ask him about it when he and the rest of the Shack's staff get back home.

Upon leaving the draped off area, Mabel noticed something that was just as odd as her laughing Great Uncle. The entrance was nowhere to be seen, and even worse, the entire tent was empty. When they came in, the various concession stands lined the entire perimeter of the tent, with the exception of the entrance, which should be in the middle. Instead the entire fabricated structure was closed off entirely, with no visible way of exiting.

About 20 feet in front of her, not too far off from where the entrance should have been, two figures stood along the path that was supposed to go outside. They wore blue outfits with various gold and silver trimmings and tall blue hats riddled with bells. If someone passed them, it would have been obvious that they were clowns, but like everything else in the circus up to this point, there was something unsettling about the clowns before Mabel. For starters, their limbs were entirely out of proportion, with their arms and legs easily reaching 5 feet each. Their heads were facing the dirt, arching their necks into a shape that resembled a swan's neck. And to top off the eerie vibe they emitted, they weren't moving. They looked like a set of lifeless statues, standing in the middle of the empty tent hallways.

But amongst the other problems, such as a lack of exits and no response from her family, the only thing that made Mabel feel a true sense of dread was the fact that she had to go talk to the clowns in hopes of finding a way out.

"Ok…Just breath. Remember what Wendy said. They're just people, they're just people…" Mabel whispered to herself, trying her best to calm down before talking the hideously deformed clowns.

As Mabel stoop about 4 feet away from the clowns, she realized just how much more terrifying they were up close. Despite the idea in her head that they were just people, and hopefully just in suits that made their limbs unnaturally long, the panic still formed in her mind, along with the side effects. Cold sweat formed all around her face and pretty much everywhere else, her hands began to shake violently, and the sinking feeling in her chest was now infinitely worse.

"Uh…Hey. Couldyouguystellmewheretheexitis?" Mabel's words flew out of her mouth. They weren't loud, they were just panicked and rushed.

Upon the sounds leaving her mouth, a faint twitch could be seen in the left clown, and in series, the right clown as well. After a few seconds, the clowns began to stand up, revealing what type of height they have with they're massive legs. When their maximum height was reached, the most peculiar thing happened. They shrunk.

The sound of bones breaking and muscle ripping was all that could be heard as the clowns before Mabel began popping their limbs into place, shortening them considerably. With their grotesque twitches and spasms that allowed them to shape themselves into a more human form, Mabel was frozen in place, unable to move at the sight of the disfigured clowns slowly becoming refigured.

The clowns were finally done 'assembling', with their heads looking up from the ground, Mabel could see the cold, dead stare they presented to her. Now, from what she'd seen, clowns usually had a face that showed happiness and joy, it was what she thought they used to lure people into the circus before flaying them and wearing they're skin. But the two clowns before her had none of that. Their eyes were black as night, being only holes with absolutely nothing in them. The faces of the two before them wore malicious grins and the proper arched eyebrows to accompany it.

"OH, DON'T BE AFRAID DEARIE, WE JUST WANT TO MAKE YOU SMILE…" The clown on the left reached inside of its jacket, pulling out a massive meat cleaver. "…FOREVER! HAHAHAHAHA!"

The maniacal clown lunged out at Mabel, just missing her barely with his knife. The second the wind from the blade brushed across Mabel's face, she was gone in a flash, letting out a horrified scream as she sprinted away.

"WHY YOU RUNNIN'? I JUST WANT YOUR SKIN! I NEED A NEW BLANKET!" The second clown let out a bloodcurdling scream before running after Mabel, pulling out a meat cleaver as well in the process.

"OH MY GOD! I WAS RIGHT, THEY ARE EVIL!" Mabel screamed, sprinting as fast as she could.

As she looked back at the two horrific men behind her, all she could see were the two figures not running, but stumbling forward, as though they weren't even supposed to be moving in the first place. But that didn't even phase her. The only thing going through her mind at the moment was the thought of clowns running after her, in an attempt to wear her skin.

Mabel was about a quarter of the way around the tent when she started to realize something. There's still no exit. Even if she did escape from the smiling terrors behind her, there was no way of leaving, and if she tried to get out from underneath the tent, there was the risk of almost making it through, and then being halved in the process by the clowns. There was honestly nothing Mabel could do except run. But luckily for her, things couldn't get worse.

And then they did.

While being caught up in her own terrified train of thought, Mabel didn't' see the very small amount of melted mint chocolate chip ice cream on the ground, slipping while stepping on it, falling forwards, and realizing that she was now without a doubt, dead.

Raising herself from the silken red carpet, she turned around, waiting to witness the clowns hack away at her body with their cleavers, and eventually remove her skin. When she flipped over, all she could see were the shoes of the clowns in front of her. She raised her eyes further, waiting to see the evil faces of her soon to be killers. But they weren't looking at her, they were looking at each other, seeming quite angry.

"WHY DO YOU GET THE MEATBAG!? I'M THE ONE WHO WANTS TO WEAR HER SKIN!" The first clown shouted, flailing his knife at the other.

"YOU ALWAYS GET THE MEATBAGS! SHE'LL MAKE A GREAT CHAIR, YOU'LL SEE!" The second clown was furious at the other, all while Mabel was on the brink of tears, listening to the ways they wanted to kill her.

"STOP COMPLAINING! WHAT ABOUT THE LAST TOWN, I LET YOU EAT IT'S ENTRAILS!" The first clown replied.

"YOU GAVE ME ONE, AND TOOK TWO FOR YOURSELF!" The second clowns squared up to the first, ready to slash at him with his knife.

"LIAR! MAYBE I'LL TURN YOU INTO A CHAIR!" The two clowns were face to face, each ready to kill the other.

Even though the two were fighting and leaving a massive window of opportunity to escape, Mabel was still frozen in place, too afraid of the being before her to do anything. She eyed the arms of the monstrosities in front of her, thinking of all the ways they could tear her to pieces. She looked at their teeth, imagining how they would bite into her flesh. She saw their legs, realizing that she could never outrun them, and even the five people on the other side of the tent who weren't clowns.

'Wait, who are those guys over ther-' Mabel tried to finish her thought, but she was cut off by the sound of a bullet, speeding by, and hitting the first clown from the back of the skull and out through the nose.

The second clown looked down at his fallen comrade, and began to laugh. "HAHAHAHA! NOW I'LL GET MY NEW BLANK-ARGH!" The clown was shot, in the exact same way as the first.

The five people who presumably shot the clowns began to walk over to Mabel, all of them holding different weapons. Mabel couldn't get a good look at any of them, her brain was a bit too flustered to be able to make anything out at this point. But it didn't really matter, as she squinted her eyes, in an attempt to better see her saviors, one of them raised their weapons and pulled the trigger, firing a dart into the side of Mabel's neck.

At first, Mabel was angry, being shot just after being saved from a pair of killer clowns, but it didn't last long. As the dart, and realistically, the liquid it contained coursed through her veins, the entire world went fuzzy, falling over at the sense of weightlessness. Barely holding onto consciousness, the only things she could hear before her vision went completely black were the murmurs of the five being who surrounded her.

"Vital signs, Stable. Injuries, none sighted. Trauma, possible." A soothing female voice said, holding up a blurry beeping box.

"You think she's one of them?" A deep male voice asked, which sounded like it was British.

"We won't know until she wakes up, but judging by the screaming and her face while she was being chased, I'd say she's alright." A different female voice said, this one deeper than the first.

"Guys, we've got about one minute before the rest of the Bozos come raining down on us. Everyone get back to the stand. Red, take her with us. We'll worry about her when in a bit." Another man said, with a gruff but somewhat gentle voice.

She was lifted up by the one of the five who didn't speak, feeling as though the entire world was spinning, feeling as if she was lighter than air. As the strong man carried her away, to this so called 'Stand', she finally let go, and passed out.

* * *

The entire world was just as Mabel remembered it before she lost consciousness: Spinning and nauseating. Her face was pressed against the floor, wishing she could just stay unconscious for a while longer. At first, Mabel wondered why the floor was so hard and rough for a red silk carpet, but that was until she realized that it wasn't a luxurious carpet, it was instead a cold floor, covered in dirt, cardboard boxed, and some quite disgusting insects. Mabel picked herself off of the ground, holding her head upon noticing the painful headache she had.

"Ugh…It feels like I just had a million pounds of Smile-Dip…" Mabel complained, looking around the room to get better acquainted with her surroundings.

The room she was in was much different to the tent she remembered. Lined up against the yellow stained walls, were various shelves, all containing ingredients to make delicious fried treats, such as the corn dog, the pretzel, and of course, the mighty funnel cake. On the left side of the room, there was a sign displaying all of the possible health code violations, which was ironically, covered in spider webs. This was obviously a storeroom for one of the many food stands in the circus tent.

In the front of the room, there was the door that led into the kitchen, and probably back into the circus tent. So there wasn't a good chance that Mabel would be going through there any time soon.

From the back of the storeroom, the sound of rustling and chatter could be heard. It was at this point Mabel noticed a large metal door at the back, appearing to be a freezer. There was obviously people behind it, but she wasn't too sure if it was a good idea to find out who it was. For all she knew, it could be more of the clowns, waiting for her to check the sound, and eat her.

But before Mabel could even turn away, the door began to open, allowing five figures to emerge from the freezer and present themselves before her. Luckily for Mabel, they weren't bloodthirsty, killer clowns, they were instead the group of five who killed two people in the circus and shot her in the neck to kidnap her.

Hang on a second. That sounds just as bad.

The five before her would make anyone feel intimidated. They wore dark grey trench coats, all with a single type of body armor underneath, having a plated section for each major muscle on their bodies. At first, Mabel was puzzled on how they made it into the tent without being pulled over by security, but then she noticed just how well those trench coats were at concealing, well, everything. On their backs and their sides, different weapons could be seen, each one looking more intimidating than the last, ranging from a mere pistol, to the well-known sniper rifle.

Mabel reached to her right, pulling up a lead pipe that was conveniently on the ground next to her. She raised the pipe, ready to swing, thinking about how a pipe swung by a 13 year old probably isn't going to do much against five heavily armed clown killers.

Upon seeing the girl with the so-called weapon, one of the figures before her, and more specifically, the one in the middle, raised his hands, portraying a half-assed surrender. "Well, at least you're awake." The man said, sounding quite familiar.

"WHO ARE YOU GUYS!? STAY BACK, I'M ARMED!' Mabel shouted, flailing the lead pipe back and forth.

The man in the middle pulled his coat collar away from his mouth, to make it easier to see his face. "I'm sorry, where are our manners?" The man asked, with a suave tone in his gruff voice. But then he paused, forcing all sense of confidence out the door, and welcoming in the awkward. "Uh…Does anyone know how to start this?"

"You never were any good at this." A woman said, sounding just like the one who checked her vital signs earlier.

Everyone in the room looked at the black haired man in the far left of the group. On the left side of his face, were numerous scars and puncture wounds, and a five o'clock shadow that told the world 'Oi! What're you lookin' at, ya bastard?' His spiked up hair may say that he's friendly, but his face and beaten flesh says he tolerates no trouble.

He looked back at them, appearing to be annoyed. "Oh! So just because this wanker can't handle introductions, I have to go first?" The British man asked, pointing to the man in the middle.

When no one answered, he let out a short sigh. "The name's Emmett, Explosives and heavy weapons expert." From his back, he pulled out a massive rifle, with an ammo belt that started in a box on the side, and fed into the gun.

"I guess I'm next." The woman next to Emmett stepped forward, brushing her brown hair from out of her eyes, revealing a nice blue color that were tinted onto them. On top of her beautiful complexion, her rosy red cheeks took away from the massive scar going diagonally through her mouth. She grabbed what seemed to be a pistol from a holster on her hip. But it seemed as though the pistol fired syringes rather than bullets.

"Hi, I'm Penny, I'm kind of the medical chick. Also, I…uh…shot you with the tranquilizer…But I made sure you were alive! So, that counts for…uh…something…" Penny said, wearing a sympathetic smile, trying her best to make Mabel like her.

To the right, a redheaded woman to the right raised her head, appearing to be annoyed by the attempt at friendship by Penny. She looked quite different from the others. While everyone around Mabel was currently scared, bruised, or disfigured, she was untouched. Her face was long, but seeming to always have the cocky smile that it currently had. Her green eyes weren't fully open, as if it was too much work to open them entirely.

She walked over, reaching behind her back and pulling out a long rifle, with a high powered scope on the top of it. "Oh yeah, that makes it all better." The woman snickered, wearing a cocky smile before approaching Mabel. "Sup. Name's Lou. I shot those Bozos before they ripped you open, so you can thank me later."

The man in the middle put his hands down, now appearing to be a bit more welcoming, despite his scary looking armor. His face was quite handsome for someone who travels with these people. His brown hair was long, but swept off to the side, making it seem much shorter. On either sides of his mouth were two hideous scars, carved into his skin to make to illusion of a forced smile. While the rest of his face was cheery at the sight of a new friend, his brown eyes were sunken and sullen.

"I'm John. I kind of just shoot whatever makes sure nobody here dies." He said, pulling out two bayoneted six-shooters.

And together, we are-" John was cut off by Mabel, who was pointing to the man on the far right side.

"How come he doesn't give any introduction?" Mabel asked, still careful about placing her trust just yet.

"Oh, that's Red. He doesn't really talk. But he's kind of our _jump-into-a-fight-very-slowly-but-destroys-everything-while-shrugging-off-anything_ guy." Penny explained, looking over to the massive man in the corner. "Red, sweetie, come say hi."

Red made his way to Mabel, who was fearful of the man's size. Red was about seven feet tall, wearing the same coat as everyone else, but without the battle armor underneath, just grey pants, a red shirt, and black belts crossing his chest. His right hand was wearing a metal gauntlet, and from the looks of it, it was there to punch anything that he saw fit to be punched. On his back, he had a massive battle axe, with one side being an axe head, while on the other, it looked like a sledgehammer.

Considering what Mabel remembers about the clowns being splattered all over the walls before she was tranquilized, he would have seemed pretty normal. But contrary to everyone else in the room, where his face should have been, there was only a mask. The mask was unlike any she had ever seen. It appeared to be a Jester mask, with the left side laughing, and the right side crying. But it was scorched, seeming as if it was subject to intense heat.

The massive man raised his hand, placing it over Mabel's head, trying to give it a pat. But before his hand could make contact with Mabel, Penny rushed over, grabbing his arm with both hands. "No no no no. Red, remember what we talked about. You're a lot stronger than everyone. Remember what happened back in Wyoming?" Penny asked, moving Red's arm away from Mabel.

Red shrugged, and made his way back to the corner.

John cleared his throat, looking over to Red, and then back to Mabel. "Ok then, if that's all done…" John motioned his arms over to the group, telling them to get back into the same position they had when they came in.

"… We're a secret organization of clown hunters, bent on disbanding every circus to save those trapped within. We, are C.L.0.W.N.E.D." John said, trying his best to get some dramatic effects out of his words.

"Clowned?" Mabel asked, scratching the back of her head with the lead pipe.

"Yeah, Clowned. It stands for Clown Liberators Zero, West/North-East Division." Lou explained, holding her hands on her hips.

"Wait, you guys actually hunt clowns?" Mabel knew that clowns were evil, but the thought of them being slaughtered was a little unsettling.

"Look, it's not like we're hunting down people." Lou paused. "They're not even human."

"What do you mean?" Mabel was stumped by Lou's statement, wondering if what Wendy said was just a means to make her feel better.

John walked up towards the front door, opening it slightly to get a better look at inside the tent. As he pulled his head back in, he looked back at the others, opening his mouth to speak. "Hall's clear. I think we've got a bit of time to explain."

"Hang on, mate. We still need to make sure she's alright." Emmett said, pointing at Mabel.

"Fine. You." John looked over to Mabel. "What's your name?"

"Uh…My name's Mabel." Mabel said, still put off by the current series of events.

"How do you feel about clowns?" John asked, raising one eyebrow.

All of C.L.0.W.N.E.D. turned and faced Mabel, on the edge of their seats waiting for a response. "Oh my God! They're horrible! Everyone tells me that their just people and that they only want to make people laugh, but they're not! They're actually evil monster that want to pin you down and eat your face!" Mabel shouted, once again flailing her arms vigorously.

Everyone in the room except Mabel looked at each other, sharing nods and glances before making a decision about Mabel.

"Yeah. She's cool." Lou said, resting her sniper rifle on her shoulder.

"Ok, good. Everyone, back into the freezer. And Mabel…" John looked over to Mabel, pointing over to large steel door. "…Come with us. We'll explain everything."

Mabel walked back to the already open freezer door, opening her eyes in wonder to what she saw. The cold temperature wasn't present, but was instead replaced with a welcoming warmth. The walls were lined with rows of shelves, each one containing food, ammo, or the most exotic weapons anyone has ever seen. In the middle of the freezer, a small fire was set up, explaining the pleasant heat that emitted from the supposedly cold room. Around the fire, there were five cheaply-built folding chairs, presumably being the home to each one of the members of C.L.0.W.N.E.D.

The five members sat down around the fire, resting their weapons at their sides, and taking a bit of time to relax after the stressful arrival of Mabel. As Mabel made her way further into the temporary base, Red immediately caught sight of her. The massive man got up from his seat, walked over to the corner of the freezer, and faced the wall.

"Where's he going?" Mabel asked.

Lou looked up from the flame that was centered in the middle of the freezer. "Well, a while back, we tracked down a circus in Wyoming. We had a few people like you that found us while we did our rounds in a circus. We left them with Red for just a few minutes… and…uh…" She trailed off, looking back down at the fire.

"What happened?" Mabel asked, now anxiously waiting for a response.

"…He may have gotten a little afraid from the people panicking, and then he maaaaaaay have started breaking their arms. So we decided to teach him manners." Lou finished, remembering the sight as if it was yesterday.

Mabel had no words to respond to what she said. It would have been one thing if he would be breaking the arms of some random bad guys, but the thought that the guy that carried her to safety was also the guy who injured some innocent people at a circus wasn't entirely horrible, but it was upsetting nonetheless.

John looked over to Lou, whose currently squinted eyes portrayed nothing but annoyance and anger. "Lou, remember. First impressions." John said, sternly.

"Yeah, yeah. It's not like she's not gonna see worse sooner or later." Lou shrugged off the warning from John. But her words carried an ominous message when the entered the ears of Mabel.

"What do you mean 'worse'?" Mabel was genuinely worried. If two killer clowns running after her with butcher knives wasn't the worst thing that she'd see, it was understandable that she was put off by Lou's words.

"Mabel, sit down. This could take a while." John said, motioning his hand over to the empty seat next to him.

Mabel slowly walked over to the chair, still cautious, seeing as how she had never met this gang of scary looking commando-type people.

John took in a deep breath, seeming weary about what he was about to say. "Mabel, do you know why we shot those clowns that were chasing you?"

"Well, of course! I was being chased by two evil monsters, and you guys saved me." Mabel explained, quite confident with her answer.

"Ok. And you know that we hunt down clowns at circuses all around the states." John paused, pulling out one of his revolvers from his left holster. "But do you know why?"

"Yeah, the clowns are super evil monster from Hell that want to take over the world and you guys want to stop them!" Mabel clenched her fists and slammed them down on the plastic arm rests, expressing how she really feels about clowns.

John raised his, head and fully leaned his back into his chair, wearing a surprised face as Mabel finished. "You know, you're not too far off."

"You're darn right I- wait…really?" Mabel asked, puzzled by the justification of her fear.

"Mabel, the history of our organization is much longer than a few years, so sit tight, this might take a bit." John reached into one of the many pockets on his trench coat, and took out a rough gray stone, and began scraping the bayonet on his revolver, sharpening it.

"We formed C.L.0.W.N.E.D. about seven years ago, but this goes all the way back to the 5th century, during medieval times. We're not too sure on the exact date, but we found some journals, pages, texts and scriptures from alchemists describing a recently discovered plant, one that raised many questions amongst the brightest scholars of that time." John explained, moving his hands, and revolver in tandem with the story.

"So, what? Do the clowns need this plant or something?" Mabel asked, holding onto the armrests.

John tilted his head. "No, it's much more complicated than that. When the scholars heard tell of this it, they noticed that it responded to the sound of someone's voice, moving around when it was heard. They were blown away. Amazed that there was such a plant that cooperated with human responses. They were almost done their research, until one day, the scholars and alchemist were so thrilled by their discoveries…" John paused, still trying to feed into the drama he tried so desperately to create.

"Wait! Did the plant eat them? Was it like that old musical 'Massive Shop of Terrors'?" Mabel shouted, appearing to be enjoying the history lesson.

"Well, no… not really. The scholars just stared having a good time. Preparing a feast, enjoying wine, standard middle age party. After the party was about halfway through the night, they all began laughing, and to our guess, due to the alcohol. But then they noticed that when they were laughing, the plant wasn't just moving… It was growing." John finally got the dramatic effect he wanted. Well, sort of. Seeing as how his big dramatic reveal was the fact that a plant was doing its thing.

"Hang on, so the big super-scary clown thingy is just that a plant grew? That doesn't sound bad." Mabel frowned, crossing her arms.

"When you're a guy in the 5th century, it's a big deal!" John snapped, angry that his moment was ruined.

Upon hearing John's raised voice, Penny came over to calm him down. "John, remember what I said about being nice?"

The second he heard Penny's soothing voice, john let out a sigh, releasing all anger with it. "Don't shout. People don't like it when I shout."

"How about you go and relax for a bit over there, ok?" Penny place her arm around John, pointing at the corner which Red currently resided.

"Alright, fine." John grumbled, rolling his eyes and walking away from Mabel.

Mabel was surprised that one of the people who were determined to eradicate all clowns from the world, could be dismissed just by a simple 'Time out'. "Does everyone listen to you that much?" She asked.

"I wish. But, no. It's just him." Penny shook her head. "When we first met, we got along pretty well. But I guess you get along with anyone when you're being hunted down by a knife wielding circus. But afterwards, we got a bit closer, we trusted each other more and more, and then…well…" She trailed off, looking over to John.

"Hold up, are you guys…" Mabel leaned closer to Penny's ear, getting up from her seat. "…Dating?"

"I guess you could say that." Penny replied, quickly pulling her head away from Mabel. "But John doesn't like to talk about it to outsiders. He said it makes seem him less serious or something."

"Say no more," Mabel said, performing a zipping motion on her lips. "I shan't say a word!"

Penny smiled, and sat down in John's seat. "Thanks. So where was he in the story?"

"He was just at the part where the scholar dudes were partying and then the plant moved when they laughed." Mabel said.

"Ah, ok. I'll see what I remember." Penny slouched slightly in her seat, as though it was going to take a bit. "So after the scholars noticed the plant was moving, they all went to bed, to continue their research the next day. But when they woke up, the plant was gone."

"Where did it go?" Mabel asked.

"Their scriptures end there, explaining that someone probably stole it. But later, we found other scribblings, written by one of the high generals of the late Roman Empire. In his writings, he spoke of a mysterious masked man that came into the castle, not speaking a word, but only attempting to make the court laugh. And since he entered, he never left, always making people laugh, and never removing his mask." Penny explained, moving her hands much like John did, using them to add to the story.

"Wait, are you saying that the clowns are…" Mabel gasped.

"Yep. The clowns are plants." Penny nodded. "When we were into our third raid, I think it was the Grimes circus…You know what never mind, it doesn't matter which one it was. But we started noticing that whenever we killed any clowns, there wasn't any blood, only strange transparent liquids. We did an autopsy on one of the corpses, and then…" Penny said, hinting quite obviously that the clown were indeed plants.

"So, why do they come around?" Mabel was confused by the story, producing more questions than answers.

"After our little examination of the corpse, we noticed that they have one of the most advanced cellular systems in any plant species on earth, pretty much being able to make a functioning brain. But since they're plants, they need carbon dioxide rather than oxygen. But because their brains are so complex, they need a lot of it. So our theory, is that since humans produce the most amount of carbon dioxide while laughing, the clowns go out of their way to make us laugh, to keep themselves alive. Pretty much siphoning it off of us whenever they could." Penny smirked, slightly disgusted by the thought of humans keeping these monstrosities alive.

"So that's why there's circuses! I knew they weren't around just to sell overpriced peanuts!" Mabel yelled, putting her two fists into the air.

"It gets worse. After we destroyed one of the circuses, we started looti-uh… reclaiming a few things, we found old books, knives, clothes and pretty much anythingelse that dates back to hundreds of years ago. So these clowns are the same ones from then." Penny said, looking up, trying to remember the time period she was talking about.

"Hang on… How?" Mabel questioned, perplexed by the history lesson.

"We looked further into the ecology of the clowns, and we have a theory that explains a lot about them. So after the first Jester in the Roman Empire was done, we believe that he reproduced much like a vegetable, making smaller versions of itself and them sending them unto the world. We think that the spawns of this Jester have lived throughout all of history, entertaining other places of massive crowds, such as castles and strongholds." Penny went on, being quite informative with her knowledge.

"Well, if it was only one Jester for every castle, how do you explain the circus?" Mabel asked, shrugging her shoulders.

"See, that's where things get a little…Complicated." Penny paused, looking up, as though she was remembering where it all went wrong. "It started in the 16th century, during the renaissance. Seeing as how there were more Jesters than places to entertain, people started noticing that masked men in brightly colored clothing were parading the street, of course, making them laugh. At first, it wasn't a problem. They were quite harmless, actually." Penny smiled.

"And then everything went bad." Mabel added, to which Penny nodded.

"Bingo. The Jesters weren't originally violent. They just needed to make people laugh to survive. But when there were less places to siphon, they fought amongst themselves, trying to control the others that tried to take their energy source. The ones that survived and killed the others, became the Ringmasters. Hideous hive minds, able to control any and all other clowns that could be useful to his feeding…" Penny looked into the fire, her face seemed pain by the thought she was carrying. "…And that's when the circuses were made."

"Like the one we're in…" Mabel said, feeling quite afraid of the predicament she was in.

"Unfortunately, yes. When the ringmasters came into power, they created other types of clowns, like the ones that chased you. The 'Slapsticks' as we call them, they take care of killing everyone off when they can't provide enough Co2. The sad clowns, or 'Weepers', harvest it, and the fat clowns hold it, giving it out equally amongst the circus. We call them 'Bloats'. But the worst ones of all… Are the Harlequins." Penny shivered, trembling at the thought. "They're the Jesters that submitted to the ringmasters, taking care of people like us…and well… you."

"What do you mean 'Like me?" Mabel tilted her head, raising an eyebrow in confusion.

"Did you notice that when your family came into the circus, they were a bit too excited?" Penny asked.

"I mean, Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan do find a lot of things stupid…" Mabel trailed, muttering under her breath.

"See that's where I think you'll have a bit of fun with this. The clowns control people's minds with their noses, projecting subliminal messages to come down to the circus. But since you're afraid of clowns…" Penny explained.

"I'M NOT AFRAID OF CLOWNS…I just don't like a lot about them…" Mabel grumbled, looking down at her feet.

"Um…Ok. Since you 'Don't like clowns'…" Penny rolled her eyes, using her fingers as quotation marks. "…Your brain is so caught up in hating them, that they're hypno-noses have no effect. Think of it as the most obscure super power ever."

Suddenly, from behind Penny, John stood, appearing to be quite worried. "Penny, I'm gonna have to explain the history lesson another time, there's a lot of active movement out there, so we're gonna have to lie low until it dissipates." He said, looking towards the freezer door instead of Penny.

"Don't worry about it, I already finished." Penny smiled, getting up from her chair.

"Wait, really!? But I had a slideshow! It took me like 3 hours to put it all together!" John complained, pulling out a USB flash drive from his pocket.

"Whoops. See what happens when you shout?" Penny grinned, placing a hand on John's shoulder.

After the overarching smart-assery was finished, john let out a long sigh. "You're a pain in my everywhere…"

Penny leaned forward, planting a gentle kiss on John's cheek. "Yeah, but that's why you love me." She said, smiling.

"But – I – My slidesh – Forget it. We should probably hit the hay, we've got to be up early tomorrow morning." John said, pointing over to what appeared to be makeshift beds made from cardboard.

In Mabel's mind, John was out of his mind. Going to bed now? It was only one o'clock! "Why are you guys going to bed so early? The sun's still out!" Mabel frowned.

"Oh yeah, we forgot to mention that after we knocked you out, you woke up way later. It's like, ten o'clock already." Penny explained.

"WHAT? But my family's still out there! We have to go save them!" Mabel panicked, looking over to the freezer door.

"Whoa there. Don't worry, this circus has until tomorrow night before they can't laugh and the slapsticks take them out. We've got time." John said, reassuringly.

"But, they're still in trouble!" Mabel yelled, now pointing at the door.

"Mabel, calm down. We're going to be up before the sun even rises. They'll be safe I promise." Penny smiled, trying her best to make Mabel feel better.

There was a fire that burned inside of Mabel. On one hand, she was boiling with rage, frustrated by the circumstances she was in. But on the other, she was just sad. Crestfallen that no matter how much she was willing to risk her life in an attempt to save everyone else's, she was only a thirteen year old girl. And it wasn't like she was up against a bunch of gnomes this time 'round, these were horrific monsters that would devour her in a heartbeat.

With great pain, Mabel said the only thing she could. "Ok."

"Splendid." John turned away, pointing at a shoddy piece of grease stained cardboard, possibly infested with who-knows-what. "We've only got five beds, but you can have mine for tonight. I'll take one of the chairs.

Upon questioning the definition of the word 'Bed', Mabel proceeded over to the cardboard slab, lying down and trying her best not to get covered with what she assumed was dirt.

The others around her followed in unison, placing their weapons beside their beds, and getting ready for a well-deserved rest. With the anger still fresh in her mind, Mabel laid on her side, wishing not to look at anyone from Clowned. But unfortunately, her gaze fell upon Penny who was laying down on the bed next to her. And while Mabel was expecting some sort of smile filled 'Don't worry, they'll be fine.' Excuse, there was none of that. Only a sullen look.

"Mabel, look. We've all lost people before. And some of us, we lost them to the clowns." Penny explained, looking down at the ground. "But that's why we're here. So that no one else has to. So when we say that we'll save them, you bet we're gonna save them."

Even though her brain told her to roll her eyes and shrug off the attempt at making her feel better, there was something else in her brain that took away all the anger, sadness and pain. For the first time since she was saved by Clowned, she trusted them.

"You promise?" Mabel asked, putting out her pinky finger.

Penny let out a relaxed sigh before shaking Mabel's pinky with her own. "I promise."

* * *

(Usually, and probably for the rest of this story, I would have some sort of witty remark about the end of the chapter, but luckily for you guys, this isn't the end. But much like a very messed up Rubik's cube, there's a downside.

Now, this was supposed to be a really long chapter, possibly doubling the size of the previous ones, but my entire schedule has been messed up due to unforeseeable events. At first, it was exams, then there was a big graduation thing, then I had to go on vacation with my family, and I've had no time to write anything for you guys.

Now, I know what you guys are thinking:

"Why are you telling me?"

I'm not asking for an excuse to be late with this story, I'm really just writing this message to tell you guys how sorry I am. I'm not too sure on how many people really do enjoy this, but to those who are, I'm really sorry. When I started this back in May, I thought that I had a really open schedule, ready to be used and bent whenever I wanted. But since the summer stated, I've really had trouble doing this.

So I can't guarantee, the timing of the next chapter, but I simply ask for you guys to be patient. And seeing as how I haven't been receiving any death threats, I think you guys are alright on that front. So, just remember, there may be a bit of a drought for a while, but once everything is back in order, expect this story to be on time.

Thank you guys so much for your support.)

* * *

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